Nick Whitlow was 10th overall in the pole vault Saturday at the Division III NCAA Indoor Track Championship. (Chris Zollner Photo)
Nick Whitlow decided his junior year at Clarksville (Tenn.) Academy to join the track team and participated in the sprints and relays.
“I had no intention of doing anything again with track after that,” said Whitlow.
He came to Centre College as a kicker/punter and was the starter in his COVID 2020 freshman season when he made both field goal tries and averaged 50 yards per kickoff. He tore his hip flexor in 2021 and redshirted. During the 2022 season he punted 44 times for an average of 40 yards per kick with a long of 68 yards and had seven punts over 50 yards. He averaged 54 yards on 45 kickoffs with six touchbacks.
Centre College track coach Lisa Owens emailed Whitlow about possibly joining her team after someone told her about his jumping ability.
‘I could dunk a basketball pretty well. I passed the eye test,” Whitlow said. “I tried the high jump, had a practice and Coach said she would keep me around since there were only three weeks left in my sophomore season.”
Whitlow became a decathlete and Owens immediately felt he could be special despite his relatively late start in the sport.
Whitlow actually put his name into the football transfer portal and had a chance to go to North Central College, which has won two of the last four Division III national championships and lost in the title game one other season.
“I had all these credits at Centre College and if I had transferred I basically had to start over at North Central because none of my credits matched up. I told my coaches here I was committed to track and was staying at Centre,” Whitlow said.
That’s when his move to become a decathlete started and he admits the 2023 season was “tough on his body” going from two events like he did in 2022 to 10 events per week required by the decathlon.
“My first decathlon I was kind of upset. It was brutal but fine,” he said. “It humbles you. All the guys in it are awesome but also very supportive. I just fell in love with it. I do think now about what if I had started this earlier. What if I was already technically sound coming into college? But honestly my senior year of high school I could barely dunk the basketball. So if I had tried this in high school I probably would have been no good.”
Whitlow scored 4,643 points in the decathlon at the Lenny Lyles Invitational in Louisville to open his season with a personal best of 13 feet, 5 1/4 inches in the pole vault and was close to personal bests in the long jump (21-4) and high jump (5-11 1/2).
“Louisville was a great meet with a bunch of bigger schools. I talked to a bunch of guys and soaked in everything I could from them,” Whitlow said.
In the Southern Athletic Association Indoor Championships at Centre College, Whitlow was second in the high jump 6-3 1/2 and second in the long jump (22-7 3/4).
Whitlow gets to practice each of his 10 events normally one time per week and admits when he gets to his third event he might “not give it his all” in practice that day.
“I practice with every specialty group but it is their first practice and their energy helps carry me,” Whitlow said. “The long jump, high jump and pole vaults are the ones I love and am best at which I know is unusual to be strongest in those events.”
His least favorite event is the grueling 1,500-meter run, which is always the final event in the two-day decathlon.
“I am the least decent in (110-meter) hurdles and have a lot of ground to make up. I’ve never done anything like hurdles before. You have to make it to the finish line or you don’t score. It’s unique to be sprinting and have something in your way,” Whitlow, a computer science major, said.
Whitlow brought a fearless attitude into track and admits that “might not have been the smartest” way to approach a new sport.
“My mentality coming into track was I am a football guy first. If I got hurt in track, not much was being lost,” he said. “I knew I was expendable.”
He worried about the pole vault but his roommate is Logan Isaacs, a conference champion vaulter who has helped him. The two often watch tapes of their vaults for one to two hours per night.
He also gets help from his girlfriend, sophomore Sophie Bouldin of Louisville. She’s a cross country/middle distance runner who is as competitive as him.
“If I am in a slump she is there telling me I am doing great. We feed off each other constantly. She is awesome. She helps with my distance workouts. I call her Coach the whole time and she lets me have it if I let down,” Whitlow said.
He will run with her sometimes but admits it is hard for him to keep up with her.
“One time in the summer I tried to do a long run of 10 miles with her. I did eight miles and walked back to the car and she was there laughing and waiting for me,” he said.
Whitlow had big goals for himself this year. He wanted to make nationals in either the indoor or outdoor season — or maybe both.
“That would be awesome and prove I am not just a football player doing track but a true track athlete,” Whitlow said earlier this season. “I am going to take a fifth year (of eligibility at Centre). Ideally I will make nationals this year and get that experience under my belt, but if not I am coming back for another year.”
Whitlow has accomplished part of what he wanted. He not only made the Division III NCAA Indoor Track Championships but he finished 14th overall Saturday in Virginia Beach, Va., to earn second team all-American honors (Isaacs was fourth in the pole vault and was named a first team all-American).
He was sixth in the shot put overall with a throw of 38 feet, 1/4 inch and 10th in the pole vault at 12-7 1/2. He ran the 60-meter dash in 7.36 seconds and 60-meter hurdles in 9.04, went 21-8 1/4 in the long jump, cleared 6-0 in the high jump and finished the 1,000-meter run in 2:59.00.
