IN A YEAR he calls “Sam’s Sequence Of Unfortunate Events,” Sam Whitmarsh’s least traumatic experience was getting shot.
It was the 2021–22 season, his first at Texas A&M, and the setbacks Whitmarsh endured set him on the path leading to the NCAA 800 title his senior year. The Lake Jackson, Texas, native had two heart surgeries to fix a previously undiagnosed condition, reinvested in his faith and realized “maybe don’t walk around in Aggie gear in downtown Austin.” (Don’t worry — It was a rubber bullet and he was OK, but we’re getting ahead of the story.)
Whitmarsh arrived in College Station from Brazoswood HS with a broken foot suffered in his Regional. He soon was broken-hearted, too.
In the same week in September, he lost his grandfather, ended his relationship with his high school girlfriend and found out that his foot had not healed enough for him to practice. “Everything kind of got swept out from under me,” he recalls.
The Materials Engineering major also was struggling with academics and hadn’t made many friends yet. So, when two teammates invited him to go to church, Whitmarsh was eager for new connections. His life changed, though, in ways he had not foreseen. “In that moment,” he says, “was where I felt like I’d been found.”
However, Whitmarsh adds, “That didn’t mean that life got easy, or that it fixed all my problems. In fact, I know that happened at that point because things were going to get harder and I was going to need my faith more than ever.”
Following a mild case of coronavirus, the protocols for his returning to training required an EKG. In a stroke of luck, the doctor who read his scan was a specialist in Wolff-Parkinson-White Syndrome. He diagnosed Whitmarsh with the rare condition in which people are born with an extra electrical pathway for heartbeat signals.
“I was actually relieved when he called me and told me there was a problem,” Whitmarsh says. “I was like, ‘Finally! I’m not crazy!’”
Since he was 9 years old, Whitmarsh had sporadically experienced a rapid heartbeat of 200–220 beats a minute. If he bent down to tie his shoe, his heart rate would plunge to 60 in the space of one beat.
“I kind of learned how to live with it, to stop alarming my coaches,” says Whitmarsh, who also played basketball and was a soccer goalkeeper in addition to running track, “because usually if I told them that I felt like my heart was going to beat out of my chest, that would cause some issues.”
Doctors all over Houston, Whitmarsh says, “kept telling my parents that I was a healthy growing boy, and that there was no problem, so we kind of ran out of options.”
Whitmarsh’s heart also wasn’t pumping blood properly during the episodes, so his body generated lactic acid that made him feel sore all over.
Whitmarsh had surgery in January ’22, but says the doctor was experienced enough to refrain from being overly ambitious, “because if they had, I would have a pacemaker and wouldn’t be able to compete.”
With faith and willpower, he resumed running for what became a breakout outdoor season. However, fate would intervene again when Whitmarsh found himself in a situation that would make anyone’s heart race.
Before competing at the Texas Relays in Austin, he was walking to meet an old friend for lunch.
“She gave me a warning, ‘Hey, Sam, this is the street where I get all my crime reports,’” Whitmarsh says. “I’m thinking, ‘I’m 6-foot-4, I’m a guy, no one’s going to want to bother me.’”
Standing on a corner waiting for the light to change, he heard some yelling and didn’t think anything of it since he was in a city. Then Whitmarsh heard a “tink, tink, tink” against a metal transformer box behind him. He noticed a black truck going through the intersection and just as he realized someone in the backseat was pointing a gun at him, he felt a hit below his left eye.
Whitmarsh sprinted back to his hotel. His face was starting to get red and puffy, but the skin was not broken. Despite his vision being a little blurry, he was able to run the 400 leg on the sprint medley and the 4×8 the next day.
“I like to think I’m the luckiest unlucky person,” Whitmarsh says. “They may claim that the (Texas/Texas A&M) rivalry is dead, but I got shot with a rubber bullet and it said otherwise. That one luckily was not fatal, however, if it was a real bullet, it probably would have been.”
His travails were not over, though. After finishing as the runner-up in the SEC 800, Whitmarsh stepped off the track and went into an hourlong episode with his heart racing. He ended his season and underwent another surgery that summer which finally took care of the condition.
In his sophomore season he broke the navicular bone in his other foot.
Once he recovered from that injury, Whitmarsh was primed to win the ’24 NCAA title his junior year.
While he was running through traffic on the inside to take the lead on the homestretch, Shane Cohen of Virginia was kicking on the outside and ran a PR to edge him at the line 1:44.97–1:45.10.
Track & field fans were struck by how happy Whitmarsh was for Cohen. “We’re all people, we’re all created equal and, man, if somebody else gets to take home gold that day, that’s pretty awesome,” Whitmarsh says. “I knew when I crossed the line I had given the best that I could, and the best that I could was 2nd place on that day.”
Another year, another NCAA. In this year’s final, Whitmarsh was in 5th when he found a hole with about 200 to go and took the lead.
This time there was no one coming around on the outside.
“Again, I wanted to put it all down on the track,” says Whitmarsh. “I was running as fast as I could, thinking to myself on that homestretch, ‘I really hope this is enough this year.’”
It was and he crossed the finish line in 1:45.86 with a big smile underneath his mustache.
Commenters on the official NCAA video clip talked more about his character than about the race.
“Hard not to root for Sam. Great to see him get the win.”
“Love to see him win after he was so happy for the winner last year even though he got 2nd.”
“I like this Sam Whitmarsh, what a nice guy to be champion — healthy for the sport.” That one from an admirer in Cape Town, South Africa.
“Mustache said, ‘It’s time to GO.”
Says Whitmarsh, “I’m grateful for them right back and for their support and for their love. That means the world.”
He followed in the footsteps of other recent great Aggie halfmilers Donavan Brazier, Brandon Miller and Athing Mu who previously won NCAA titles. In addition, his 10 points helped Texas A&M capture a share of the national crown.
“Gratitude is really the first thing that comes to my mind when I think about this season and the past seasons,” Whitmarsh says. “These past four years have been a realization and reminder of what a gift life is in general, and excitement and gratitude and joy that comes from my faith in Christ and in recognizing that opportunity.”
Although he didn’t publicize it, Whitmarsh battled hip pain all season. He decided to shut down after the NCAAs because of the right hip inflammation instead of running additional meets including the U.S. nationals.
“Whenever your body is fighting that kind of thing, the last thing we need is for it to turn into something bigger,” Whitmarsh says. “So, for the longevity of my track & field career, we decided that it’s in everybody’s best interest that I rest up and get ready to get back on the track sooner rather than later.”
After total rest and a platelet-rich plasma (PRP) injection, he says, “I’m feeling great and ready to start moving again.”
In addition to running, Whitmarsh plans to hike — he scaled three 14,000-foot peaks last year, one solo and two with friends — camp, fly-fish and surf, but strictly for relaxation. “You’re not going to see me do anything too crazy or anything to risk the longevity of my career,” he says.
Whitmarsh will remain in College Station where he will continue training with coach Paul Ereng (the ’88 Olympic champion in the 800), and will also work with Brooks and its coaching staff.
With a PR of 1:45.35, Whitmarsh, who was 6th in his ’24 Olympic Trials semi, knows he’ll have to lower his time to compete on the international circuit. “We’ll definitely go back to the drawing board this season and try a couple of new things,” he says.
One thing he’s not planning on changing is his look. He’s had the mustache since his junior year of college, although he allows that his mother had to get used to it and “the entire coaching staff really gives me a hard time. I think our DMR at one point, everybody had a mustache.”
How does he think his compares to Craig Engels, whose mustache is famous in track circles?
“Oh, you gotta give it to Craig,” Whitmarsh says with a laugh. “Of course. I mean, the mustache-mullet combo is killer.”
