Justin Gatlin’s path to Tennessee nearly took a very different turn.
Before the five Olympic medals, before the 12 World Indoor Championship medals, and before becoming the fifth fastest 100-meter sprinter ever recorded, the VFL had already been sold on LSU. A high school recruiting trip left a deep impression, especially the setting and the company.
“They brought me to the head coach’s lake house,” Gatlin said. “We ate barbecue, met some of the girls on the track team.
My host was like the number one 400-meter runner in the world at that time, not just collegiately, but in the world, and I was just like, man, I’m sold. I’m coming here, no doubt about it.”
He gave LSU a verbal commitment. Then Tennessee got its shot, and the contrast was immediate.
“[Assistant Coach Vince Anderson] picked me up in his Jeep Cherokee,” said Gatlin. “When I got in the car, the rearview mirror fell. I remember them putting me in a cot, you know what I mean, instead of in a dorm in a bed.”
What ultimately changed everything was Anderson’s pitch. Gatlin said Anderson told him, “I can’t promise you that you’re going to win a championship or we can win a championship together, but I can promise you I can make you the best version of yourself.”
That was enough to flip his decision. Once he got home, Gatlin told his mother he was choosing Tennessee and asked her to call LSU to back out. She told him he had to make the call himself.
The LSU coach didn’t speak to him for a year and a half after that decommitment. Still, Gatlin’s years in Knoxville paid off in a big way.
He won six sprint titles, more than any Volunteer had ever won in any sport, according to the Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame. He also earned SEC Male Track and Field Athlete of the Year, Track and Field News’ Collegiate Athlete of the Year and UT’s Male Athlete of the Year.
Later, the LSU coach came back around and told him, “You made the best decision for yourself, and it’s the best decision that you could have made.”
Gatlin said Tennessee taught him something that stayed with him long after he left early to turn pro: how to build something bigger than himself. At a time when the track program didn’t get much attention, the athletes leaned on each other.
“We were each other’s fans,” Gatlin said. “We got a lot of traction from that.”
That lesson carried into his professional life, where he built his own support system with coaches, an agent and family members once he no longer had a formal team around him. He also went on to compete in the 2004, 2012 and 2016 Olympics, and became the oldest man to win a medal in a non-relay sprint.
Since retiring, Gatlin has launched the podcast Ready Set Go. He’s also taken on what he called his “hardest job,” but one he loves: being a dad.
His older son, Jace, is 16 and already bigger than him, playing linebacker. His younger son, Jaxx, has nonstop energy and plenty of speed and agility. Gatlin thinks he might grow up to be a track runner.
Asked what he wanted fans to know, Gatlin pointed them back to Knoxville’s track scene.
“Take the time - as much as we love to go to Neyland Stadium, go out to Tom Black Track. Cheer some of these track and field athletes on, because a national title is a national title. Every athlete sacrifices a lot to be able to be there in those moments and win a championship, not only for themselves, but for the school and establishment too.”
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