Coming into this indoor season, the Iowa men’s track team had a hole to fill in the 60-meter dash. Record-holder Justin Austin can’t compete because he has no indoor eligibility left.
What Iowa has now are two more record-holders in junior Tevin-Cee Mincy and senior Josh Larney, who are trying to pick up right where Austin left off.
“I don’t know if you can replace an athlete like Austin,” Larney said. “He’s a very talented sprinter. You see that type of talent and think it’s crazy. It forces you to work harder.”
Before Austin lost his eligibility, he was one of the best sprinters to ever run for the Black and Gold. He set the all-time record in the 60-meter dash at Iowa in the Big Ten meet in 2011 with a time of 6.69 seconds.
Assistant track coach and director of recruiting Clive Roberts said that it’s common, but not frequent, to see older tracksters be ineligible for the indoor season. Reasons for ineligibility include redshirting early in a career or running for four years.
“I always look up to Justin as someone I can really watch and learn from,” Mincy said. “From him, I learned how to get out of the blocks and how to keep my posture right. He’s just helped me along the whole way.”
Mincy has the eighth-best 60-meter dash time at Iowa at 6.81 seconds, which he set at the ISU Qualifier in 2012. Larney set the fourth-best mark by an Iowa runner in the 60-meter dash earlier this season at the Iowa Open with a time of 6.78 seconds.
Mincy admitted that he and Larney have discussed about what it’s going to take to replace what Austin brought to the team.
“Iand [Larney] talked about it last year,” the Altoona native said. “We said that we were going to step up and take over in the 60 because this year, it’s just me and him.”
Being the only two sprinters who run the 60-meter dash has given each of them someone to compete against on a day-to-day basis. Both runners agreed that what motivates them to excel is each other. Mincy said he and Larney trade words of competition in practice to push each other to their limits.
“I know that every single day I have to come in here and work because [Mincy] is working so hard,” Larney said. “If I take a day off ,then he’s going to pass me into terms of work ethic. You’ve got to keep up your work ethic when it comes to a guy like that.”
Roberts credited the Iowa coaching staff as the reason the program has had such quality sprinters recently.
“I think we’ve got coaches that work hard,” Roberts said. “I don’t think a lot of people think that Iowa is going to be a hotbed for sprinters, but we get good kids here. We work very hard to coach them and put them in situations where they can succeed.”
Even though Austin isn’t with the team for the indoor season, both Mincy and Larney will do all they can to keep the records coming.
“Without him, we still feel pretty confident,” Mincy said. “When we get him back for outdoors, its just going to be that much more magical.”
