After 16 years of running both the male and female Taylor cross country programs, head coach Quinn White is retiring.
It was a mild, 60-degree day as teams arrived at the Ray Bullock Invitational at the Taylor Cross Country (TUXC) Farm on October 10. The bang and echo of a gun sounded at the starting line, and 93 sets of spikes dug into the grass.
As the athletes rounded the curve and began to come out of the trees partway through the race, a flurry of activity could be seen at an opening.
A loud voice cut through the hubbub like a knife.
“Eyes up, we’re passing, we’re not staying here,” White said.
His blushed face contrasted the white polo shirt he was wearing as he stood motioning intently to the runners passing in rows of three. Then—he was gone as they passed, jogging around the crowd in his white sneakers. But, far away, his voice continued to ring over the fields shouting two words as if from a megaphone.
“With pride!” White said.
The final leg of the race wrapped around a waist-high wooden fence. Slowly, the runners came out of the woods and wound their way around it until they made their final left turn and ran into a slight incline that led to the finish line. It was here, before the finish line, that Coach White called to them.
The Taylor women passed one by one. As the last few came around, White grasped the side of the fence, his face nearly touching one exhausted runner. The yelling that he had used earlier faded into a soft tone.
“Can you get one (pass another runner)?” he whispered.
White was first introduced to cross country as a young teenager enjoying his summer vacation. He had not experienced much success on the school football team, and a friend asked if he would like to try out for the cross country team. They started running during the summer, but when the official practices started, White found himself alone for the first practice, running long, torturous repeats. He keeled over after practice with a sick stomach.
“I was like, ‘You got to be kidding me—what is this?’” White said.
And yet, he found himself back at practice the very next day. And the day after that.
White went on to run cross country at Taylor, while majoring in elementary education, from 1983 to 1988. In his first semester, he didn’t have total clarity in regard to his vocation, but he knew he wanted to be an educator to make a difference in people’s lives.
He recalled a pivotal moment that went on to shape his coaching and teaching career.
Near the end of White’s senior cross country season, he realized that he had spread himself too thin between extracurriculars, school, and sports. After having a particularly bad practice and being physically and emotionally drained, White threw in the towel.
“I just said, ‘Coach, I'm done,’” White said. “And I walked off.”
The next thing he remembered was sitting on a staircase in the Reade Liberal Arts Building, looking up as his coach, Chris Coy, told him that he wasn’t about to quit. They would work through the struggle together.
In the very next meet, White came back to set a personal record. For him, it meant the world that somebody was willing to take the time to pull him aside and tell him he could accomplish those goals.
White described himself as a “straight shooter,” and a person who highly values truth in every aspect of coaching and recruiting.
Jaynie Halterman, a sophomore on the team and the 2024 and 2025 NAIA Individual Champion, said that one of her most poignant memories was meeting White for the first time. He told her that her relationship with God and love of running should come first before winning.
White emphasized running free without tension, forcefulness or anger, and encouraged the team to focus simply on running with joy, Halterman said.
In some of her earliest difficult workouts with the team, Halterman remembered feeling like she should slow her pace because it might not be sustainable for longer periods of time.
“Coach Q told me that if I can do it that fast, why wouldn’t I,” she said. “Instead of worrying about future parts of the workout, he reminded me to focus on one step at a time and do what I can in that moment.”
The idea of firing up athletes used to be a go-to routine for White, but his philosophy changed in the 2018 and 2019 seasons. He began to focus on the idea of motivating athletes by encouraging them to stay relaxed instead of fearing the unknown. It was then that he discovered they performed far better when he took the pressure off of them.
In 2019, the men’s team finished in second place at the NAIA National Cross Country Championships. When they came back in 2020, White had a special message for the men.
“Let’s do it for each other, let’s do it for the Lord and let’s do it for this university,” he said.
And, for the first time ever for their program, they came across the finish line first.
The 2022 fall season was a special one with the women’s team, finishing with a perfect record—but it also changed White’s perspective on winning.
Five weeks out from nationals, White noted that the whole team was running extremely well—too well. Afraid that the athletes would peak before their final races, he began looking at ways to modify the workouts they were doing.
“I thought, ‘We have to back off; we can’t hold this,’” White said. “The Holy Spirit said to me, ‘Stay the course.’”
As the women’s team checked off more races with blisteringly fast speeds, White continued to worry that the runners were using up their last storehouses of energy. But, every time White felt that this plan didn’t make sense, he could hear the ringing of those three words: “Stay the course.”
Nationals came. The women’s team won the race for only the second time ever and ended their season with every runner finishing inside the top 34 spots, earning seven All-American awards.
White now has a tattoo to commemorate the three words that led the team to an unprecedented finish.
As a member of Taylor’s faculty, White possesses a certain individuality on the coaching committee for having two offices. One is in the Euler Science Complex, where he is an education professor, and another in Odle Arena—his coaching office.
Taylor University Athletic Director Kyle Gould said he might not be in Odle Arena as often as the other coaches, but the success of the men’s and women’s cross country programs speak for themselves. He added that White has a high standard for what can be done, and that has shown up not only in his teaching but also in his ability to coach the best out of his athletes.
But winning has never been White’s first priority, Derek Gay, head coach of the Taylor track and field team, said.
“Just watching him coach, he hates losing, but not actually the most,” Gay said.
White prioritizes effort over results, focusing more on an athlete’s capabilities than their ability to win. This reveals itself in his willingness to encourage them beyond what they think they can do to give the best effort, Gay said.
As the sun set over the fields of the TUXC Farm, J.D. Collins, a close friend, gave a speech in the presence of friends, family, coaches and athletes to commemorate and celebrate White’s 16-year journey with Taylor Athletics.
After the noise of applause sounded, White said a few teary words, noting that he might not get very far, as “the iron marshmallow is melting quickly.”
“To my athletes, your impact on my life is beyond words,” he said. “You've taught me so much about resilience, grit, joy and faith. Watching you use your gifts to grow into what you're meant to be has been one of the greatest joys of my life.”
Before setting the microphone down, White waved goodbye to the diverse seasons of change he experienced on and off the race course in the last 16 years with five words: “To God be the glory.”
