The Heisman Trophy Podcast

The Origins of Elite Athleticism — Quincy Watts

Guest: Quincy Watts, two-time Olympic gold medalist (Barcelona, 1992) and USC Director of Track & Field and Cross Country. Host: Chris Huston.

Chris Huston: Welcome back to the Heisman Trophy Podcast. I'm your host, Chris Huston. We're continuing our offseason exploration of the origins of elite athleticism. So far we've talked to a variety of experts in this field, including head football coaches like Curt Cignetti and Lincoln Riley, and winter Olympians like Kristi Yamaguchi and Joey Cheek. We've talked to neuroscientists and journalists who cover this area.

For this episode, we're once again talking to an Olympian — this time from the sport that I think is the purest distillation of athleticism: track and field, one of my favorite sports. The athlete joining us today is Quincy Watts, who won two golds in Barcelona in 1992. The first came in the 400 meters, in what was then an Olympic-record time of 43.50. His second gold came as the second leg of the men's 1,600-meter relay squad, which set a world record of 2:54.29 — a mark that stands to this day.

But he's more than a gold medalist. He's also a highly successful track and field coach at USC, where a couple of seasons ago he won the school's first men's outdoor title since 1976. That's a remarkable accomplishment, given that USC is a private school — USC joined Stanford as the only private schools to win a men's outdoor title in the last forty years. It's a tough thing for a private school to do. And he won the indoor title that year as well. So, Coach, congratulations on your success, and welcome to the Heisman Trophy Podcast.

Quincy Watts: I appreciate it. Thanks for having me, and I appreciate you.

Chris Huston: Sure thing. So, you were born in Detroit — not a place typically known for its track and field stars. What was it that originally drew you to the track?

Quincy Watts: Well, growing up in Detroit, I was a basketball player. I was drawn to sports in general, but the sport that really resonated with me was basketball. I didn't have much of a skill set, but I was very athletic, and I just enjoyed the game. I didn't get involved in track in Detroit — I just loved running around the block with friends in the neighborhood. I always came in fifth or sixth; I never won. But the joy of running and competing as a young kid was always fun to me.

So Detroit was where athletics became a part of me, and where it started. Then I moved out to California to be with my father, and I finally had someone who could spend time with me. I enjoyed that time with him — playing basketball, learning about track. As I moved out to Inglewood and went to Taft High School, my growth in sports really began.

Chris Huston: Great. Who first noticed you were fast? Was it a coach, your dad, or some other kid you finally beat?

Quincy Watts: It was a combination, really. When I moved from Detroit, I enrolled in Sutter Junior High School. I only had one semester there — the spring semester. In P.E., we had the 50-yard dash and the 75-yard dash. My dad didn't really know what he was getting with me; we were only a few months into living together full-time. So one day I came home from middle school and said, "Hey, Dad, guess what? I broke the 50-yard-dash record today." He said, "Oh, wow, that's great, Sonny."

Then about a week later, we had a 75-yard dash, and I broke that school record too with my P.E. teacher, Mr. Hanley. I came home and said, "Dad, guess what? I broke the 75-yard school record today." And he jumped up and said, "Look what the good Lord sent me." My dad was very into sports — he knew everything, very knowledgeable. From then on, it resonated with him that his son was doing something special. At that point he knew nothing about track, so he sought out people who knew a little about running.

That's how I got involved. After basketball season, I went out for the basketball team at Taft, and there was a senior named Kerry who was the fastest runner at Taft High. In practice, I beat Kerry off the start, from about zero to thirty or forty meters. One of the athletes went over to Coach Tom Stevenson — I loved him to death; he's since passed away, but he was a football coach at the time — and said, "Hey, Coach, this freshman just beat Kerry." Coach said, "Bring him over here." I came over and he said, "Did you beat Kerry?" I said, "Yes." And the first thing he said was, "Get out of my face, dog breath." I said, "What?" That was just his way of embracing his student-athletes.

But that was my introduction. If it wasn't for Mr. Hanley giving me the opportunity to compete on the blacktop — and then taking me to my first track meet, the Jesse Owens meet at Cal State LA, where I got second and was mortified — and then Coach Stevenson and being part of that Taft track team as a freshman, none of it happens. That's how my career and my journey at Taft started, and it was awesome.

Chris Huston: Was your dad also a good athlete? Was he fast?

Quincy Watts: He wasn't fast, but he could shoot the basketball — he was an excellent shooter with a natural touch. He loved basketball. And I think my mother played basketball as well. So both my parents were basketball players — not at any high level we'd recognize, but pretty good athletes.

Chris Huston: Got it. They must have really been fighting over you at Taft. Football must have been saying, "We need you over here," right? Was there a little bit of a tug-of-war between the coaches?

Quincy Watts: Well, the coaches actually understood that I was a basketball player who was also a pretty good track runner. They were all kind of on the same page: "We don't want him to play football." Even Coach Stevenson. I was begging my dad — I wanted to play football because a lot of my friends played. You're young, you follow your friends. And I'd never played football before. But the coaches were all on the same page: this kid has a future in track and field. So they let me focus on the two sports, basketball and track. But I really wanted to play football.

Chris Huston: I saw an interview you did a while back where you said you watched Carl Lewis in the '84 Olympics and told yourself, "I'm going to win the gold medal." Tell me about that. Was he the one who really got you hooked on track?

Quincy Watts: Absolutely. My first introduction to track and field was that meet I mentioned — the one that recognized Jesse Owens, the Jesse Owens meet. And Jesse Owens, of course, won four gold medals. Well, fast-forward to '84, and Carl Lewis was the next person I saw win four gold medals. I was a sprinter at the time, in the 100 and 200, and I remember pointing at the TV and telling my dad, "I'm going to win a gold medal. I'm going to win a gold medal." My dad was very impressed, because I said it so matter-of-factly. I just had a lot of self-confidence then. What Carl Lewis had done in the '84 Olympics — how he did it, how impressive it was — resonated with me. It was huge in my young, impressionable mind. So that stuck out, and I told my dad I was going to win gold.

Chris Huston: That prospect of winning the gold, of achieving something so few people have done — when you ran the 400, which is a hard race, and the 200, all the races are tough on the body. Was the gold medal always hanging over you, like, "I'm going to get through this workout because it gets me one step closer"? Or was it something you set aside for a long time?

Quincy Watts: Honestly, I didn't accept the 400 at first. I was a 100-and-200 sprinter, a state champion, and I was recruited for the 100 and the 200. I did very well on the mile relay running 400-meter legs, and with my height — I'm 6'3", and I was 6'3" in high school — a lot of coaches thought my future was in the 400. But I didn't see it there, because that's too much of the pain business.

I remember Ernie Bullett recruited me to USC, and then Coach Bush took over as head coach when Coach Bullett retired. The first thing Bush said was, "I'm going to make you a 400-meter runner." And I had no idea — I was kind of naive, because I'd never really followed the 400. Being a basketball player, I was naive about track in general.

Chris Huston: Well, he was famous for his 400-meter runners, right? Jim Bush.

Quincy Watts: To your point, he had a great legacy of 400-meter runners. And when he approached me about becoming a 400-meter runner, I looked him straight in the eyes and said, "I'm not running that event. I'm going to try football." That's how much fear I had about running the 400. So I went and tried football, and I enjoyed it. I made some great relationships being part of the USC football team. Let me be clear — I tried football. I was on the scout team. I didn't play for USC, but I was part of the program, and I really enjoyed it.

After football season, I came back to the 400, and Coach Bush said, "You ready for the 400?" And I said, "Well, I guess so. I don't have a choice." So I ran the 400, and that's how my journey in the event began — coming out of football and accepting the pain business with Coach Jim Bush. After that, I ended up becoming an NCAA champion and a two-time gold medalist.

Chris Huston: Now, the other thing was that you got a lot of injuries early in your career, right? The 100 and 200 put different stresses on the hamstrings and the different muscle groups. It was always your hamstring, wasn't it?

Quincy Watts: Yes, yes. I had one hamstring injury my senior year of high school — I'd never been hurt before — and that injury kind of followed me through my first three years of college. Honestly, it was immaturity on my part. It was my preparation. I'm not going to blame anybody else; looking back, it was just me. When I became a little more serious and a little more self-disciplined, I started having success. Those hamstring injuries came from not stretching and things like that — things that could have been prevented. Because I didn't take them seriously at the time, I had a lingering hamstring injury year after year after year. So my start was very injury-riddled, my first three years at USC.

Chris Huston: Explain to our listeners what the 400 meters is like. A lot of people think you just go run fast. Explain the strategy and the difficulty — the things you can't do, and the things you have to remember as you go through that race.

Quincy Watts: Yeah. The 400 is looked at as the hardest race in track and field, and it's been seen that way for years. It's not quite a sprint, but it's the fastest you can go over that distance. It's the most painful event ever — though the 800 meters can make a case too.

You're almost sprinting from your first step to your last step, but there's some patience in it. There's a poetry patience going down the backstretch. When I say "poetry patience," I mean you're going as fast as you can, but you're trying to be as efficient as you can, spreading your energy out over the whole 400 meters. It's very difficult.

The best way to describe it: imagine you've given everything you have — everything — and you know you can't take another step. And then you look up and you still have to run another 100 meters. Imagine running to the point where you cannot take another step, and that's when the fight begins. That's a great way to describe the 400. When you look up and feel you have nothing left, there's still another 100 meters, and you have to run it with everything you have. It's not a fun race, but it's one of the toughest in track and field. You're in the pain business. And once you accept that you're in the pain business, there's success. If you don't accept it, there's going to be a lot of pain.

Chris Huston: They talk about the elephant on your back, the piano on your back. Is it on that final curve that you feel it worst?

Quincy Watts: I was going to use that analogy, but I didn't want to date myself. Back then they'd say the monkey gets on your back, or the gorilla, or the bear. So imagine running 300 meters and then having to carry a grizzly bear the last 100 — not just carry it, but run with it on your back. That describes exactly how your legs feel, and the lactic acid in your body. It feels like you're in quicksand, every step, for 100 meters.

Chris Huston: And that's why a lot of runners seem to arch back — they're overcompensating, trying to get through that pain as they come down the stretch.

Quincy Watts: Yeah. The thing about track and field, and the 400 in particular, is that it's about technique. You practice, and your sessions are built around making sure that on the day you have to perform, you can hold your technique. The biggest question in the 400, with the last 300 already run and 100 to go, is: can you hold technique? A lot of times you see people sway their shoulders, their head goes up, their head goes down, they arch their back. It's natural — it happens under fatigue and stress. But the key is to be as efficient as you can, to keep the best technique possible even as you slow down in fatigue.

Chris Huston: Okay, so you come out of Taft High having run 10.3 in the 100 — and if you run 10.3 in high school, especially back then, you're getting recruited by the big guys. You come in, struggle the first three years, struggle to stay healthy, and around your junior year you move into the 400. Then your senior year you really dedicate yourself, doing all the things you need to do, and the times keep getting lower. You come out and win NCAAs — the team finishes third, with Curtis Conway and Travis Hannah, who were also great football players, so you had a pretty interesting Trojan team. At that point there was almost a sense of inevitability about you. As someone who didn't know a lot about track and field at the time, I could see the confidence as you ran. As you went up each level — NCAAs, then the trials — it seemed you were almost destined to win that gold. We'll talk about the gold medal race in a second, but in that lead-up, what was going on in your mind as you stayed healthy, got great results, and won NCAAs? What were you feeling, knowing Barcelona was waiting?

Quincy Watts: I think after those first three years, I finally had to sit down and have a conversation with myself. God had given me this DNA, this talent. And I'd gotten to the point where I wanted to be successful.

The only reason I went out for football was that my two best friends, Curtis Conway and Travis Hannah, were football players, and I wanted some kind of success. We all know what it means to be part of the USC football team — that's success in itself. When football was over that year — I'd had the one year — I ended up finishing second at NCAAs as a junior, and I had another hamstring pull, but I was still able to finish second on no real base, coming off football. So I sat down with myself and said, "Wait a minute. If I can get second with no base, what can I do if I really put my mind to it?"

I'm very spiritual, so I had a talk with God, and I made some real checks in the boxes. I decided to take advantage of the talent I'd been given. There were boxes I needed to change, and the number one thing was this: I decided to be all in, to give everything I had, to operate with excellence and not be comfortable anymore.

I'd been an athlete who was very comfortable being able to score high and compete at the highest level without giving everything I had. I reversed that. My senior year, I operated with excellence every day — no matter what the day was. I gave everything I had with my coaches, in the training room, everything it took to be an NCAA champion. That was the first hurdle: become the best in the NCAAs. Once I did that, the next hurdle was making the Olympic team.

I made the team — I got third at the trials. I'd run 43 in the semifinals, which gave me confidence that I could actually make it. But I was so tired from the collegiate season, and from the trials themselves, because at that point I'd run something like 20 to 25 races in one month, where the pros only had three races under their belt. I was very tired, and I almost didn't make the team. In the final, I was so tired that when the starter said, "On your marks," and I came to the set position, I couldn't even move my legs. When the gun went off, everybody went first, and I went a beat late — but then there was a second gun, which meant a false start by another athlete. That woke me up. It said, "Okay, you've got another chance." I ended up placing third. Mission accomplished — I made the Olympic team.

Placing third at the trials did not deter me, distract me, or make me think I wasn't going to win the Olympic gold. I just needed rest. I know myself, and I knew I was going to win. I was destined to win that gold medal. I'd made that commitment with my father when I watched the '84 Olympics and said, "I'm going to win a gold medal." No matter what I went through — the injuries — I had great support at USC. My athletic trainers were always wonderful, so I never wanted to be anywhere else. I was just frustrated; I needed an opportunity to get healthy.

So once I made the team, there were several meets that wanted me afterward. Track and field is really big in Europe — you make your living on the European circuit — and these meets wanted me to come run, and you're paid to run. But I chose to forego the money. I said, "If I could just get some rest, I'm going to go to Barcelona and win a gold medal. I just need rest from the collegiate season." So I stayed home for about four weeks and rested, and then I went to Barcelona. Once I got there, I took a run on the beach, and I knew I was going to win. I knew from my first step to my last step in the finals. After the semifinal run — I think I broke the Olympic record — I knew I was going to win.

For me, it always felt like destiny. And even in destiny, there's adversity. In this chair I'm in now, as a head coach at USC, I try to use my experiences to motivate and uplift my student-athletes — that adversity isn't a bad thing. It's an opportunity to get better, and you need it to be the best. Any great athlete has lost. It takes a lot of losses to become great. I had losses, I had adversity, but nothing was going to stop me from what I'd already manifested as a teenager — winning the Olympic gold medal.

And that came through. The great thing was, when I was on the podium, I had a chance to reflect on my father and everyone who'd touched my life. You don't get to the top of the podium by yourself. You don't win a gold medal by yourself. I looked at my father and his commitment, my tutors and their commitment, the teachers at Taft High. I created a really great village along the way — a village that carried me to the top of that podium. So many people supported my father and what he was pouring into me. In that moment, standing on the podium, it was a time to reflect on the journey and how I got there.

Chris Huston: What do you remember about going into that final? They walk you out, you've got the stadium, the beautiful Olympic Stadium in Barcelona. Was it hot? It was nighttime, right?

Quincy Watts: Yeah, it was beautiful. It was evening — late evening. One of the things I remember is the warm-up area. After I finished my warm-up, they drive you over — it's about a 20-minute drive to the stadium — and then you have about 30 minutes to maintain. I remember just meditating. I was on my back, on my backpack, going through my breathing, meditating, running through my routine. I already knew what I needed to do. I already knew it was over — I was the Olympic champion. I just kept meditating. And then thoughts come in, and through meditation you honor those thoughts. A thought comes in, like, "The stadium is packed." And you say, "Okay, yes, the stadium is packed." And you breathe it in, and you breathe it out.

Chris Huston: What kind of thoughts? The TV camera in your face?

Quincy Watts: Right. Or, "In your quarterfinal, you didn't have the best race." Okay — I didn't have my best race in my quarterfinal. But then I'd answer with a positive thought: "In my semifinal, I made that correction and set an Olympic record." So you breathe in, you honor the positive thoughts, and you also honor the negative thoughts — and then you blow those negative thoughts out. You keep affirming all the positive things, and why you're here. I always go to positive corrections; I never look at the negative. Those different energies are going to come in and try to pull you off your game, away from your goal, away from the present moment — but the opportunity is now. So I always go to positive corrections. I look at what I can do in this particular race, in this particular moment. What's the correction here?

And as I meditated, I fell asleep. I fell asleep. I remember an official calling, "Okay, men's 400," and I woke up with a great sense of calm. I was very rested. I was in a meditative space where nothing was going to interrupt me. As they walked us out, the stadium erupted, and I remember not looking to the right, not looking to the left. The people in the stands were all a blur. I was totally locked in, just walking down to the start. And from the moment the starter spoke, I knew there wasn't one person who was going to beat me that day.

Chris Huston: When you're down in the blocks, are you trying to keep your mind clear? Are you telling yourself, "Don't forget to do this"? Do you have mantras you're reaffirming? What's going on in your head when the gun's up?

Quincy Watts: Great question. I think everyone's different. For me, meditating in the staging area cleared my mind, so by the time I got into the blocks I wasn't thinking about anything. I'd already run the race in my mind several times. I knew exactly what I needed to do at each point. So I wasn't talking to myself in the blocks. I didn't need any mantras. I was already in a clear state. I just needed to lie there, fire the gun, and go win the gold medal.

Chris Huston: "Let's get this over with."

Quincy Watts: Let's get this over with. And then I remember being in a very flow-like state down the backstretch. I saw everything. Time slowed down. I watched the reigning Olympic champion, Steve Lewis — a great friend of mine, a great competitor at UCLA. I knew everybody in that race. Going down the backstretch, I saw everything. I saw Steve Lewis. I could tell his cadence picked up, and I thought, "Okay, he's for real today." And I told myself, "I'm going to win this race, but one thing I'm not going to do is let this Bruin beat me." We have fun with that, but I was already thinking: whatever I do, I'm going to win the gold, and I'm not going to let this Bruin beat me. So it was a lot of fun from a USC standpoint.

Chris Huston: You weren't the only one thinking that, I'm pretty sure.

Quincy Watts: I remember seeing his movement — I saw everybody's movement — and responding to it. I think I was in lane four or five, and Steve was out in lane seven. He's a great Olympic champion, a returning Olympic champion, a great runner. I had to keep my eye on him, because I did not want him to steal the race from me. I moved a lot earlier and a lot faster than I'd planned to, but I was prepared to.

Chris Huston: You mentioned the meditation. When did you start meditating, and who turned you on to it — who helped you do it in an effective way?

Quincy Watts: Nobody really taught me meditation. It was just something I did on my own. When I was nervous, I'd go to a relaxed state and meditate. I may have picked up somewhere how to do it — let everything in, even if it's negative; don't try to block it; let it in, and then let it go out. I think the worst thing a young athlete can do is try to block out the negative thoughts and act like they're not there. No — let them come in, do your self-affirmations, and let them go out. For me, it was something I did naturally, but along the way, as I realized I loved it, I started learning a bit more about meditation. It's something I used as a kid without knowing I was using it. I could block things out, compartmentalize, and stay focused on the task at hand. So there wasn't one single moment when meditation was introduced to me.

Chris Huston: Do you think you could have been as successful without getting into the meditation and learning to reach that flow state? Could you have taken another approach and still been as successful?

Quincy Watts: I do. I think so, because I was always driven. I'm very competitive, and I probably would have found another way to control my environment and be successful. There's more than one way to skin a cat. Mine was meditation, but even before meditation, in high school, I was very successful just because I was driven. I wanted to be the best, and I had a great work ethic. So I think I would have found another way to win that gold medal I said I was going to win when I was twelve years old. One way or another.

Chris Huston: The 400-meter record at the time was Butch Reynolds' 43.29. Was there a part of you that wanted to break it too, or did you just want the gold?

Quincy Watts: I wanted to break the record, but the number one thing was the gold. World records are always broken. But once you're a gold medalist, you're always a gold medalist, and nobody can ever take that away from you. That was my rationale — gold medal versus world record. The priority is the gold. There's always going to be an opportunity to break the world record; every year there's a chance. But there's not an opportunity to win gold every year.

Chris Huston: That's true. When you crossed that finish line and it was real — the gold, the Olympic record — did the feeling match what you'd imagined all those years, or was it something else entirely?

Quincy Watts: It was something else entirely. It didn't really match what I thought it would feel like. I was extremely tired. And I've always operated with calmness — so the first thing that came to my mind was finding my father in the stands. I found him, and we hugged, and just looking in his eyes, we understood the journey. It was a moment of stillness, where we were in our own world. In that moment, the first thing I thought about was getting off the plane in Los Angeles, flying in from Detroit, and him being there. We went to the store, and I got some potato chips and a soda — from that, all the way to where we were now, hugging in Barcelona, having just won the gold medal. So it wasn't an "aha" moment. I was in a place I was destined to be. I'd won the highest pinnacle in my sport, and I was right there with my father. We're humble people. We just embraced that moment as, "Wow — our journey made it." It was that simple.

Chris Huston: That sounds pretty awesome. So you had the gold under your belt, and then you go back out for the 4x400. Steve Lewis was on that squad, right? And Valmon — Andrew Valmon. I can't remember who the other one was.

Quincy Watts: Yeah. So it was Andrew Valmon — who is currently the head coach at Maryland — myself, our third leg was Michael Johnson, and Steve Lewis was the anchor leg. It was the golden age of 400-meter runners, and I was the youngest of everyone, coming straight out of high school — well, out of USC. Being with those great 400-meter runners was a challenge, but I was excited to be part of that quartet.

Chris Huston: Yeah, this was the golden age of 400-meter sprinters for sure. You ran the second leg, which — at least in the short sprints — is typically where you put the fastest guy. And you ran a great split. 43.10, was it? Was it one of those things where you already had your gold, so it's "nothing to lose, just go all out"? Or was there a different mentality — you didn't want to disappoint the team — or was it just "I'm going to go run crazy"?

Quincy Watts: Well, the year before, at the World Championships, Great Britain beat the US in the 4x400. And they wore these T-shirts that said, "We kicked their butts." They had the nerve to wear those T-shirts in 1992. So the head coach came to me — I was supposed to run anchor — and said, "Quincy, I want you to blow it out on the second leg."

I definitely disagreed, because I wanted to run anchor. All my life I'd wanted to anchor the US team in the 400. But I had a lot of respect for Coach Mel Rosen — at the time he was the Auburn coach — and the way he approached me, his professionalism, made me agree to run the second leg. And again, I'm a basketball player at heart; I'm a team player. Whatever you need me to do, I'll play my part. That's what I bring to the table — my experience, my competitiveness, my success in track and field. So when Coach came and said he needed me on the second leg, even though I disagreed, I took one for the team. And because of those T-shirts — "We kicked their butts" — I went all out. It was exciting.

There's a lot that goes into it. Once you win the Olympic gold, you want to hide — there's a huge letdown, because that race is over, the thing you've trained for all your life. So now you've got to get ready for the 4x400, get your energy back up. But once you see those other three guys, and once you have "USA" on your chest, you're at your best, and your energy is where it's supposed to be. It was a great time competing for the US. We knew we could break the world record, and the next year, with a different squad, we broke it again. Just a great moment, and I'm so appreciative of the opportunity.

Chris Huston: And you're still part of that world-record mark — 2:54.29, I believe. So let's fast-forward a bit. You did some coaching — I think you went back to your alma mater at Taft — and now you're at USC. USC was the greatest track power of old, but times change, and it's hard to win at a school that costs seventy thousand dollars now, where you can't split up scholarships as much. That's a big challenge. But you came in and won the national championship in 2025. I never thought a USC men's team would win a championship again, so it's an incredible accomplishment. What did you do as a coach — what did you take from your experience as an athlete — to get these guys there? You were also a very sprint-heavy team that won it. What did you bring as a coach that you'd learned and could translate to these athletes?

Quincy Watts: You win with balance. As an assistant coach at USC, we won two national championships on the women's side. The women have 18 scholarships, so it's a lot easier to win there if you can put the team together. And how we won on the women's side was very sprint-heavy, as you mentioned. What I learned — not just as an assistant coach, but when I was an athlete here too — is that we didn't have the balance, so we always had to win on the sprint side.

So looking at this head-coaching seat, I asked myself: how can I be great? I don't want to be a good coach — I want to be a great coach. Just like as an athlete, the pinnacle was the gold medal; as a head coach, the pinnacle is the national championship. And I want to be known as a coach who can put a team together. That's what I'm most proud of — coming in, looking at a roster, not having the full team, having 12.6 scholarships, and saying, "Okay, how can I put this thing together strategically so we can be in position to win a national championship?" You have to build it with athletes who can do more than one event at a high level, because that's how you create scoring opportunities. You recruit athletes who can do multiple events, and who are the best of the best — or at least at the top of the NCAAs.

In doing that, we also entered this whole NIL space, which was new to all of us. Being able to navigate it, and to bring in more bodies because of it, let us add depth on both the men's and women's sides. So between the NIL space and using my experiences as an athlete — I didn't win a team national championship as an athlete, but I won an individual championship, and I'm a team player — and then as an assistant coach winning two national championships on the women's side, I tried to take all those experiences and build a team that would find success even if we didn't score high in any single event. Because no matter what, at USC we're in the top five in scoring in everything we do. That was the thing: we didn't have one individual national champion at the indoor or the outdoor championship. But what we did do was put a team on the track that was the best in the country, all over the track — the field events, the long jump, the throws, the high jump on the apron, the sprints down the straightaway, the oval. We positioned ourselves so that, even if it wasn't perfect, we had a great opportunity to fight for a national championship.

Chris Huston: I'm really curious about this. You've now coached sprinters at all levels, but what do you think separates an elite athlete from a merely very good one? Every year there's a new crop of sprinters coming out of the high school ranks with these great marks. I was looking at Tate Taylor down in San Antonio — just ran 19.92, just went under twenty seconds, the first time a high school kid has done that. How much of it is body, how much is mind, and how much is work that nobody watches?

Quincy Watts: It's a combination of all three — that's a great question. The body: you've got to have the DNA. Tate is phenomenal — that's DNA. The mind: look at how mentally tough this young man is. He's out there with the pros and he's winning. I look at a guy like Noah Lyles when he was in high school too. Michael Norman. Rai Benjamin — my guys. All of them had the same thing.

They were excellent high school runners. And outside of Tate, who's still in high school, still transitioning — Noah Lyles, Michael Norman, Rai Benjamin — these are guys who, when you wake up in the morning, you don't have to cheerlead them to win. They wake up wanting to win more than you do as a coach. That's a beautiful thing.

In my journey, I've seen that talent is talent. We've all seen phenomenal talent that never materialized, because certain boxes weren't checked. And we've seen phenomenal talent that did materialize, because all the boxes were checked. Excellence on one side checks all the boxes; being comfortable on the other side unchecks them. That's where you see talent that was probably better than, or equal to, the talent that made it — but the ones who made it checked all the boxes. So excellence over comfort is the differentiator. It's the difference-maker between being the best — or being regarded as the best, having the longevity where your name is always mentioned among the greatest in your event — and being someone just as talented who you say, "Wow, this is the next Michael Norman, the next Rai Benjamin, the next XYZ," but who would rather be comfortable. Being comfortable does not yield success. Self-discipline, checking all the boxes, choosing excellence every day — every day, over being comfortable — that's it. Not "I can do that tomorrow." No, no, no. There is no tomorrow. Winning doesn't care. Winning doesn't care if you're sick. Winning doesn't care if you don't feel like doing it. But excellence every day, and building a great foundation — that's the separation. That's the separator between the great ones and the ones who missed the boat.

Chris Huston: Interesting. You mentioned guys like Michael Norman and Rai Benjamin. As a coach, you have to know when to assert yourself and when to just get out of the way, right?

Quincy Watts: Absolutely. You've got to understand personalities. These two guys were like amazing Ferraris. At practice, coaches would stop and just watch Michael Norman and Rai Benjamin go around the track, because it was the most beautiful, most entertaining thing you could see — two Ferraris going at it. But these two Ferraris were built differently.

With Michael Norman, I could be very hard on him. On the correction piece for a workout, I could be very hard, and he understood it and responded to it. Rai is a different approach. Rai is an intellect; he wants more of a conversation, in a very respectful way. I enjoyed talking with Rai, because I could just say, "Okay, big fella, this is what we need to do." I understood his personality. If you talk to Rai like a man, pull him aside, he'll respond — he responded to that type of teaching and communication. And Rai would be very upset if Michael beat him in a rep. They were two best friends — that's what made it special — but they had two different personalities. As a coach dealing with high-end, high-profile, high-intensity, and, yes, high-maintenance athletes, you have to understand the personality and the communication piece.

For me, it's easy to be in this seat, because I've done what they're trying to do. I know what I wanted: I wanted somebody to be very tough on me — I responded to that — and I also wanted somebody to say, "Come here, big fella." I remember a football coach named Bobby April. When I first tried out for football, he tapped me on my helmet and said, "Big fella, you're going to be good. Keep fighting out here, big fella." I'd just had the worst day — excuse me, I just had a terrible day. He was my DB coach, and he went on to be a special teams coach, I think with the Cincinnati Bengals and maybe the Baltimore Ravens. But he came and tapped me on my head and said, "Big fella, you got this, big dog." The way he said it kept me built up on a day that wasn't going perfectly.

So I use what I was taught, and how people treated me and coached me up, in this space I'm in today — because everybody is different. You've got to understand the egos, and at the end of the day you want to build somebody up to keep them going toward their goal. It's very hard to lose these athletes, so you've got to be mindful. With the wrong criticism — and how you deliver your constructive criticism, which should be constructive — you can lose an athlete. And in this day and age, a lot of these athletes are very soft. I'll be very honest — they're very soft. I don't mind saying it.

I'm not going to change my era, my philosophy, because I know how to win. I'm proven in this space. So I'm going to challenge you. Everything we talked about in the recruiting process, in your home visit — if I told you, "I'm going to give you everything to be an NCAA champion, a world champion, an Olympic champion, and I'm never going to take a day off" — then when I see you taking a day off, I'm going to challenge you here at USC. Some people can handle it, and some get their feelings hurt. But I'm not here to be your friend. I'm never going to show up at your dorm. I'm never going to hang out with you. I have one purpose: get you to graduate from USC and honor my word about your goals and what you want to accomplish here.

Chris Huston: Well, Coach, it's very rare for someone to be an Olympic champion and also a national-champion coach. It's not common for great athletes to become great coaches, but you pulled it off. We really appreciate you sharing your tremendous knowledge — your experience as a track athlete and your success as both an athlete and a coach — and taking the time out of your busy day. Thanks for coming on the show.

Quincy Watts: Absolutely, Chris. In closing, I just want to say that I've accomplished a lot as an athlete, but my biggest challenge and my biggest goals are here, as head coach and director of track and field and cross country — men's and women's — at USC. This is the challenge. I'm more proud of the two national championships, and our women being runner-up, than of any gold medal. This is a very tough space, as you mentioned, because most successful athletes don't have the patience to be successful with others and change lives. I learned that at an early age, and I'm most proud of where I am today. I'd love to keep building championship moments, championship teams, and championship-quality young men and women here at USC.

Chris Huston: Awesome. We look forward to seeing it. Good luck for the rest of the year — we wish you the best going forward. Thanks for coming on the show.

Quincy Watts: Thanks for having me, Chris. Have a great day.