Track and field coach Wayne Phipps discusses hurdling techniques with sprints/hurdles coach Angela Whyte Tuesday in the Kibbie Dome. Whyte will be competing in the 100-meter hurdles at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. Photo by Jake Barber/Argonaut.

Angela Whyte’s Olympic career has been defined by .44 of a second.

The time discrepancy is just double that of a blink of a human’s eye. The less than half a second difference cost her an Olympic gold medal.
But numbers define everything an athlete is in track and field and everything he or she leaves behind. Times, down to the millisecond, can lead to the ultimate victory or the most devastating of defeats. The 12.81 seconds it took Whyte to fly over 10 hurdles in 100 meters in the 2004 Athens Olympic Games is one of the most gratifying experiences in her life.

“I remember thinking, ‘I don’t know what I could have ever done to deserve this,’” she said. “I just broke down. It was one of the most emotional events of my life.”

Now she’ll have that gratification all over again.

On July 6, Whyte finished second in the 100-meter hurdles at the Canadian Trials with a time of 12.96 seconds — fast enough to qualify her for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.

In Athens, Whyte placed third in the second heat of the 100-meter hurdles with a time of 13.01 — the slowest time of all of the athletes who qualified for the semifinals. After shaving off .05 of a second, Whyte qualified for the finals.

“I knew it was going to be hard,” she said. “I barely made it through the semifinals. Getting to the finals can be the hardest part. I told myself, ‘I have to throw down everything I have at this moment to make it to the final.’”

Whyte placed sixth out of eight athletes — a placement she’s nothing but proud of, but not content with.

She has no regrets, just more determination than ever before.

Whyte stands erect. Her smooth, mocha-colored skin stretches gracefully over lean, defined muscle. She radiates athleticism and confidence. She rockets off the ground — one, two, three vertical jumps, then six high-knee runs in place. She shakes out each of her legs in front of her, one at a time. Her arms fall loosely to her sides.

Other track events are going on simultaneously inside the University of Idaho Kibbie Dome, but everyone in the stands is watching her.
As the field judge instructs the runners to take their mark, Whyte drops down, flicking each leg behind her before placing them into the blocks. Her fingernails align carefully to the starting line.

The women lift their hips, their eyes focus down each lane.

The starting gun cracks through the air.

Whyte takes the lead with the first step. Her salmon colored midriff tank top is a red flag she’s competing unattached. Her short, tight curls shake as she strides over hurdle after hurdle.

She won the 60-meter hurdles at the Vandal Indoor Feb. 8 with a time of 7.92 — the fourth fastest time in the world. Her closest competitor, UI runner Heather Bergland, finished nearly a full second behind her.

As the sprints and hurdles coach for the university, Whyte oversees Bergland’s and other Idaho athletes’ practices and training.

“I’m here training; I might as well coach,” she said. “There’s only so many hours I can train. This is a way to give back to the sport, to the university and to the athletes.”

During the team’s practice, Whyte maintains a level of seriousness and “sprinkles on a bit of the goofy.”

A four-door SUV is parked in the middle of the Dan O’Brien Track and Field Complex on a sunny day in May. Its speakers blare early ‘90s rap music. The Fresh Prince and DJ Jazzy Jeff, Salt-N-Peppa and Kool Moe Dee play in the background. Whyte dances like a Fly Girl between calls for new warm-up drills.

“And now we have a five minute stretchy stretch,” she screams over “No Respect,” as she slouches down in her baggy sweats and throws fake gangster hand signs. Most people haven’t seen her in a pair of jeans.

She hovers over the sprinters as they stretch, joking with them and asking about their day, but if one lets up too soon, she snaps back into coaching mode and reprimands them. Practice consists of a series of 100-meter drills before timed 300-meter sprints. The athletes breathe heavier after every round.

“And noooow the kicky kicks on the way down,” she says in her best professional wrestling announcer voice.

Little is said by way of technical terminology, but the athletes always understand. She stops to correct an athlete’s foot position occasionally, offering specific advice, just long enough between wiggling and dancing to “Summertime” lyrics.

“Practices are always fun, but they’re always hard work,” said Megan Garcia, a UI sprinter. “She’s just way cool. She has the perfect balance of being your friend and your coach. She knows when to be light and when to be serious, and for that I have a lot of respect for her.”

Athletes respect her because Whyte has been in the same student-athlete position that her sprinters are in now.

Whyte began trying out different athletics from a young age. She grew up in Edmonton, Alberta, and her parents, both former athletes, encouraged their children to participate in sports.

“With my dad, it wasn’t even a question,” she said. “That’s just what we did. We were always outside playing in the park. I was always involved in gym classes as a small child. I took to team sports in junior high: volleyball, basketball, track.”

Track and field developed into Whyte’s “sport of choice” in high school, and she joined the highly competitive Canadian track clubs to gain more experience. She also played high school basketball, but soon realized she would have better collegiate opportunities focusing on track.

“I don’t think my dad cared who did the sports in the family,” she said. “He pushed for my older brother to do them, but he was much more interested in the stock (market), even in high school. Being old-fashioned I think he wanted his boys to do them, but I don’t think he really cared as long as he had an athlete.”

Whyte sent out dozens of letters to many different colleges with her dad’s support, but received few responses.

“I got no responses,” she said. “No one was interested in me.”

After time, the University of Iowa and the University of New Mexico took interest, but neither could offer her enough scholarship money to attend the school.

“My father and I started negotiating, and New Mexico said it could only offer a partial ride,” she said. “We just really didn’t have the money for that. I just thought, ‘I don’t think I’m going to be able to go to school.’ But they went back to the drawing board, and the school was able to find more money.”

Whyte left a lasting impression at her time in New Mexico with five school records and All-Mountain West Conference honors in the 100 meters in 2000. After a shift in coaching staffs at New Mexico, Whyte began to seek a transfer. The decision was ultimately between the University of Arkansas and UI. She visited the universities and felt comfortable with Idaho’s program, especially with Idaho coach Wayne Phipps — a relationship that would prove to be a critical component of her Olympic medal quest.

“Arkansas has a huge track and field tradition,” she said. “But my dad said coach Phipps said that I would be taken care of here. In Arkansas, they told him I’d just be another athlete. Who tells a father that?”

She was a four-time NCAA All-American and five-time Big West champion at Idaho. Whyte helped the Idaho women’s team to 2001 and 2003 Big West championships. In 2001, she was chosen as the Big West Female Athlete of the Year and earned Big West Female Track Athlete of the year in 2003. She holds 13 UI records and is UI’s highest all-time scorer with 81.5 career points at outdoor conference meets.

“From the very first meet she ran here, I knew it was a good indication that we were going to see great things could happen,” Phipps said. “Every race she was doing something amazing.”

Whyte never actively thought about beginning to train for the Olympics. It just happened.

“I never trained just for the Olympics,” she said. “Training was always for my team, always for the Vandals, for myself and for Wayne. It just ended up being a natural progression. Everyone wants to make it to the Olympics; it’s like every football player’s Super Bowl.”

Since Athens, Phipps has focused on “smarter training” with Whyte, but has maintained similar workouts over time. Together they focus on attention to detail instead of overall training. They have figured out what works and what doesn’t by now.

Whyte focuses on weight training and only practices actual hurdling once or twice a week. She does self-motivated personal training in the weight room six days a week and conducts her own sprint sessions daily. She splits her time between her own training for the 2008 Olympics and coaching for the Idaho team.

“Right now it’s about 50/50, half the time I’m working with the team, the other half I’m working for myself,” she said. “I want to be there for this team, but I probably need to take more time for myself. In an Olympic year, I need to be a little selfish, and I hate that.”

Whyte continues to train almost daily, even after minor knee surgery in March. Each day matters, she says, and she can’t afford to take time off.

Whyte is the most dedicated athlete he’s ever worked with, Phipps said. He can’t get over how coachable she is.

“With the hurdles, there’s such minute details to take into account,” he said. “If you tell her to move her arm one inch, one inch over to the right and one inch down, she does it.”

The pair have been working together for six years. They usually see each other six to seven times a week. Whyte has picked up similar coaching styles, and they can be found shouting the same things from the same field during an Idaho practice.

Phipps is the reason why she’s still in Moscow. He’s the reason why she’s given up so much.

“I don’t have a normal life,” she said. “This town is geared toward (the college) or established families. I can’t go out with my college kids because I feel old and weird. I have given up quite a bit to do this.”

She’s gained training and coaching opportunities, a comfortable home and a means to survive in Moscow, but it depends on the day how she feels about those accomplishments.

Phipps takes a personal role within her coaching, and for that she continues to try to achieve her goals.

“A lot of my friends have moved on, moved from Moscow,” she said. “ It’s not like I want to leave, but this is not exactly where I need to be right now.”

Phipps is honored by her loyalty. He’ll be traveling with her to be at her side in Beijing.

“You see so many people leave after college,” he said. “They just don’t stick around. They’ll head to California to train down there. Angela is the most loyal, dedicated, down-to-earth person. It’s such a privilege to get to work with someone like that.”

Josh Guggenheimer, a graduate assistant for Idaho’s track program, said Whyte tends to remain modest about her accomplishments. She doesn’t complain or mention the things she gives up, he said.

“Any world-class athlete has huge amounts of personal sacrifice,” Guggenheimer said. “The hours she puts in here are almost as much as the head coach. She’s had to put things on the back burner. She’s obviously such a smart girl, in any facet of life.”

Whyte has been unable to continue her crime and justice studies degree into graduate school because she is competing and traveling so often. Her only definite future plan is to continue training for the 2008 and 2012 Olympics.

“When she first came here, that’s all she talked about,” Phipps said. “She wanted to be in the Olympics and a world champion. She just works so hard. She can’t afford to stay out later like some of her peers. She has had to make some sacrifices along the way. At the level she’s at, there’s just no room for error. There’s no shame at taking sixth at the Olympics. To see her achieve what she has is more special to me than any other athlete I’ve worked with. I know what she’s gone through and given up to be there.”

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