Earlier this month, at the 2021 Winthrop Adidas Invitational, Austin Spencer recorded the fastest time for Winthrop in the men’s 8-kilometer race, earning a 19th-place finish.
“I think I definitely need to be a little bit further up in the pack,” Spencer said. “I should’ve done better than I did.”
His critical assessment of his performance shows how high of a standard to which he holds himself.
Spencer was born in Indiana and spent the first 10 years of his life there before he and his family moved to Anderson, SC. He attended T.L. Hanna High School, where he experienced success as both a runner and tennis player.
“I did cross country in the fall and then track and tennis in the spring. So I was doing two sports in the same season throughout high school. I’m pretty proud of that,” Spencer said.
He wasn’t just a casual participant in these sports either. Spencer earned All-Region honors in 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019 for cross country, as well as for tennis in 2017.
In cross country, Spencer served as a team captain in 2018 and 2019 and earned the title of Region 1 5A State Champion both of those years.
Spencer also received the 2019-2020 T.L. Hanna Male Athlete Award. His list of athletic honors goes on and on.
Spencer said his interest in cross country began when he was in the second or third grade.
“I was doing the Purdue Area Track Club, which was coached by the high school coach. He was just trying to get young kids into it really early so that he could build his high school team really well, but he was a very good coach,” Spencer said.
“I was good at it. Everybody just gravitates towards what they’re good at, so I just stuck with it because I was good, and I kept improving over time.”
Spencer said he pretty much knew that he would run collegiately by his sophomore year of high school. By his junior year, he was running faster times and contacting college coaches.
“I was recruited by about five or six other schools that I was interested in,” he said.
Spencer said he chose Winthrop because it didn’t feel too big or small, and he loved the course Winthrop had for training. He also liked how “into the sport” head coach Ben Paxton was.
Now a sophomore at Winthrop, Spencer said he still appreciates Paxton’s seriousness and how involved he is with cross country.
“He kind of reminds me of my dad in the fact that both my dad and Coach Paxton, they seem to know almost everything about the sport that they’re coaching, and they’re also just so motivated about getting the team better,” Spencer said.
In terms of getting the team better, Spencer said Winthrop’s team goal this year is to place third in the conference.
“That’s going to be really tough, but I think that is probably my main goal for this season,” he said.
On an individual level, Spencer said he’s focusing on placement more than time this season and hopes to earn All-Conference honors.
“That was my goal last year, and I fell short of it,” he said. “I’m pretty confident that I can get it this year.”
If there’s any indication that Spencer will be an All-Conference selection, it’s the fact that he’s not satisfied with a top-20 finish in his first race of the season. Winthrop will compete in the Coastal Carolina Invitational on Friday, and Spencer is certain that he will show improvement.
“I’m going to be doing better this weekend, for sure,” he said.
