Austin Hindman, The 'Freak' Triathlete
Meyrer and his success are real proof that O'Connor's system can produce amazing results without an athlete being blessed with obvious physical gifts. Austin Hindman, the quiet Lafayette junior and defending 3200 meter State champion, is the opposite of Meyrer when it comes to starting with an acorn. Hindman showed up as a freshman sprouting full-grown oak-sized limbs with talent to match.
"Austin is a freak athlete," Quisenberry contributes without a bit of excitement. He stated it as if he is telling you Monday follows Sunday. No one at the coffee shop table offers a hint of disagreement -- including Hindman.
"The first time I saw Austin as a freshman I thought, 'Who is that?'" Meyrer recounts while displaying a face awash with disgust.
It was not that there was anything wrong with Hindman that concerned Meyrer -- it was that there was so much right with him!
"That person is not in high school!" Meyrer remembers thinking as he spied the tall blonde and powerfully-built Adonis. "That is an adult!"
Meyrer's comical rant continued as he entertained the table with his first impressions of Hindman.
"I saw him and I thought, 'Why are we letting a college kid on our practice team?' Then they told me, 'No, that's our new freshman.'"
This is where Meyrer's disgust really kicks in.
"I was like 5-foot-4 my freshman year and I see this towering kid standing there," Meyrer complained.
"We
start out the first practice and Austin is back in the second group with me,"
recalls Meyrer. Dylan and Alec are up front with the other varsity guys. So I
start thinking, 'Okay, maybe this kid isn't
that
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"Then all of a sudden he just takes off! He just runs away from me! He's gone in a second and up to the front group!"
"'I'm like, great. I suck.'"
Meyrer isn't the only athlete who Hindman has made feel inadequate. He competes in triathlons and is the reigning Pan Am national champion in the 19-and-under age group.
"I did my first triathlon when I was five," said Hindman. "My dad used to do Ironman and I just wanted to be like my dad. Going into high school I tried out every sport as most kids would. Once I got into seventh and eighth grade and started doing triathlons, I knew what I wanted to do."
Hindman is one of those rare athletes who coaches and programs are graced with every generation or so. I think he is that talented. He could do some things his final two years in high school that garner the attention of not only the elite college running programs but our Olympic team.
"Going to the Olympics is my biggest goal," Hindman reluctantly states when asked. "But I'm not going to sit here and tell you I'm going to the Olympics."
"With Austin, from a training age, he's the most developed of the group," said O'Connor. "He's a fantastic athlete. He's a big puppy dog. He's insanely talented. It helped him to have those seniors around to train with."
Despite Hindman's rare talent, he definitely understands he is lucky to be one of a very talented group of high school runners.
"It's made a big difference having the guys there to push me and motivate me in workouts and everyday life and support me," said Hindman. "We are all friends and just knowing they've always got my back no matter what, that helps with my performance and everything really."
"I can't imagine there are many kids in high school who can understand what he does training as a tri-athlete," O'Connor stated with a touch of awe in his tone.
Hindman takes a number of his high school classes online to allow for more time to train for his swimming, biking and running events. Does it get boring?
"It gets pretty complicated," Hindman admits. "But there is nothing that I would prefer doing than the training. Overall, it has a very positive effect on my running because I've been swimming since I was five years old. I think it's a safer way to train for running."
Watching Hindman and Meyrer smoothly bike around the parking lot and football stadium during a morning practice, it is easy to see how much he loves to ride. He looks like a powerful human piston as he effortlessly tosses his high-performance tri-bike from the left to the right as he gains speed.
Quisenberry, who never lacks for confidence when it comes to an athletic challenge, goads Hindman into a head-to-head swimming race. The challenge was that Quisenberry only had to swim one length of the pool while Hindman had to swim down and back. Hindman trashed him.
"That might say more about Quisenberry as a swimmer than Hindman," O'Connor laughed.
One of the trademarks of the Lafayette boys' team at meets is that they all wear pajama bottoms instead of team sweats. When I asked about this I was told that the idea came from Hindman.
"I think it was something he brought with him from swimming," O'Connor guessed.
When I asked Hindman how this pajama bottom tradition began, he smiled broadly and brushed his blonde locks off his forehead with one swipe of his giant paw.
"Honestly,
there was no reason for it," explained Hindman.
"One morning freshman year I woke up and I couldn't find my sweatpants to wear," he said. "And it was cold! So I decided to wear my pajamas. They were soft and comfortable and so I just showed up wearing my pajama pants. Then everybody thought it was kind of cool and they started doing it too."
The best traditions really do have the most original origins.
"O'Connor, who is not at all one to favor changing a routine for a specific race or event, even wore pajama pants to State and said he will again in Jefferson City this year.
"That's the only time I wear them," O'Connor acknowledged almost sheepishly. "I show team solidarity at State." His wife, The Coachess, rocked her PJ pants at Jeff City as well.