On this day 35 years ago, Mark Whitney ’78 finished 9th out of 56 runners in the Virginia Invitational for the University of North Carolina and head coach Don Lockerbie, Class of 1975. Here is an article from the October 9, 1981 edition of The Daily Tar Heel.
Runner’s Career Chronicles UNC Team
He’s not the team’s best runner. Glenn Sparrow holds that distinction after topping his fellow harriers in every meet so far this year. He may not even be the most improved. Steve Dorsey and Dick Larson, among others, have also consistently run personal records. Yet no other cross country member better parallels the up-and-down seasons UNC has had the past three years than senior Mark Whitney.
The Tar Heels have gone from Atlantic Coast Conference champions in 1979, to an inconsistent fifth place finish last year and back to contenders for conference title and national honors again this year. Mark Whitney has been through it all.
A business major with hopes of going to MBA school, Whitney came from Stony Brook, NY with much promise. As a high school senior, he won the New York State cross country championship and placed fifth in the two mile. While in New York, he frequently competed against such outstanding past and present collegiate runners as Steve Francis of N.C. State, John Tuttle of Auburn, and John Gregorek of Georgetown.
By his sophomore year, Whitney was a big factor in the team’s ACC championship. Gary Hofstetter, Doug Slack, Jimmy Cooper, Todd Hamilton, and Whitney formed the nucleus of a great cross country team.
“Before last fall I really didn’t put in the kind of training that I should’ve over the summer and I wasn’t in very good shape,” Whitney said. “Then I injured myself which made coming back all the more difficult.” Whitney fell and sliced his knee during the time trials, requiring stitches for about three weeks.
“I finally made the top seven by the end of the season, but it wasn’t anything,” he said. “It was a pretty poor season in general for me.”
Ditto for the team.
“Last year we were not a very consistent team. One of the guys would run well, and the next week he’d fall apart. The only consistent runner last year was Jimmy Cooper.
With Cooper gone, the 1981 team figured to continue last year’s mediocrity. But a new coach (Don Lockerbie), improved team spirit, more experience and the sudden rebirth of Whitney has combined to make the Carolina cross country team formidable again.
“The difference this year is that our team is really experienced,” Whitney said. “Glen Sparrow is just running, amazingly tough. He’s in great shape and he’s got a great mental attitude. The same is true with John Clark and Todd McCallister. We’re all just real tough and we feel we’ve got a team that can do something this year.”
Whitney credits Lockerbie, an old hometown friend, for much of the team’s early season success.
“I’ve known Don since I was in the seventh grade,” Whitney said. “He has done just an unbelievable job. He’s really organized and a natural coach.”
Lockerbie has similar praise for Whitney. “Mark has made unbelievable improvement,” he said, specifically citing Whitney’s ninth place finish, out of 56 runners, in the Virginia Invitational last weekend.
“Before the season started, we really were a no-name cross country team,” he said. “But Mark is one of the reasons we are now the surprise team in the country.”
Unlike last year, Whitney has been the portrait of consistency in 1981. Fourth in the season’s first race, a tri-meet victory, over State and Virginia, he finished fifth the next week at College Park, MD. But his best race was in the demanding Virginia Invitational last Saturday, which featured two Top 10 schools, East Tennessee State and Auburn.
“I probably ran the best race of my life there,” Whitney said. By running the five-mile Charlottesville course in 23:58, he cut 48 seconds off the time he had recorded on the same layout two weeks earlier. But more importantly, Whitney helped the Tar Heel team finish second overall, behind fifth-ranked East Tennessee and ahead of tenth-ranked Auburn.
“I feel that this year is a chance to prove myself again after the disappointing season last year,” he said.
“As far as the team goes, Clemson will be tough,” he said. “But we’ve got as good a shot as anybody of going to the nationals. We feel like we’re Top 10 in the country. We just have to go out and prove it.”
So far this year, Mark Whitney and the UNC cross country team has done just that.
stonybrookbears.org 