“The term I keep using is that they are generational athletes. They are not just all-stars or girls you see here and there making all-state. They are truly generational talents.” This has been Mount de Sales Athletic Director Eric Dummann’s verdict of Isabella and Juliette Whittaker. While the older sister made it to the Paris Olympics as part of the relay pool, Juliette made the cut as an 800m racer.
And wait, Juliette Whittaker didn’t just make the cut. She went all the way to the 800m event finals, courtesy of her personal best 1:57.76 in the semi-finals. The determination she has shown to reach the finals is the hallmark of an athlete who will do big things in life. The only thing that she would need is the right guidance to help her venture into the unknown. Luckily, she has had not one but two such coaches who have tried to show her the path while she has boldly taken the steps. But who are the mentors behind her success? Well, let’s find out!
Meet Paul Whittaker: Juliette Whittaker’s High School Coach
When 18-year-old Juliette Whittaker clocked 1:59.80 to win the 800m event of the Track Night NYC meet, she ended up doing one truly remarkable thing. Her time was the 2nd-fastest in high school history in the 800m distance. At least it was at that point before she herself would break the national record a month later. But for Paul Whittaker, Juliette’s father, it was the 800m win in the Track Night NYC meet that defined how good she was.
Talking to Track and Field News in June 2022, he would say, “I’ve watched the race like 100 times already, and there’s nothing I would tell her that she should have done differently.” Well, he has been telling her what to do and how to do it since she was a child. Because Paul Whittaker was the first coach of her daughter. A Georgetown alum, Paul was himself a distance runner who had helped his college finish 2nd in the 4x800m event at the 1992 NCAA indoor Championships.
He has tried to impart that distance-running expertise to his daughter. That and what he had learnt from his college mentor, the legendary Frank Gagliano: “Gags’ motto was always strength plus speed equals. And that’s pretty much what I’ve done with Juliette.” Whittaker continued, “Once we figured out how good her potential was as a freshman, I pretty much went with the Gags formula.”
In fact, Juliette Whittaker’s winning formula may be credited to her father asking her to stop playing it safe: “I told her, from now on, race to win, no matter who’s in the race,” he says. “Even if it’s pro runners, don’t be afraid to go after it.” And why shouldn’t she? She had the talent. And as her father recognized, she had great instincts too: “She has a nose for the line, and she knows how to position herself to race well. She knows how to stay out of trouble.”
Paul Whittaker’s expertise in reading the qualities of his daughter allowed him to see where she needed help. And to have such a privilege right at home makes her indebted to her father beyond blood and relation. And now, to make the next jump in her career, she has the help of a coach who has been dominating the track and field and cross-country scene since the 1990s.
Meet J.J. Clark: Juliette Whittaker’s College Coach
In Paris, Juliette had her family beside her. Along with them, she had her new coach, J.J. Clark. Who is he? Well, ask the University of Kentucky or the University of Tennessee, and they will tell you he is a coach who can make miracles happen. Clark didn’t just make his teams win titles; he made his student-athletes so good that they became Olympic and World Championship gold medalists.
Currently at Stanford, Clark has been the recipient of 7 USTFCCCA West Region Coach of the Year awards, along with 2 Pac-12 Cross Country Coach of the Year honors, all just during his stint with Stanford since 2018. Before that, he spent 5 seasons at Connecticut, where he operated as the head coach of the women’s cross country as well as track and field programs.
His longest tenure has been with the University of Tennessee, where he was from 2001 to 2014. Here, one of his accomplishments included leading the women’s team to the NCAA indoor women’s championships in 2005 and 2009.
For all his influence and the results that he has delivered for his team, the esteemed coach has been named a two-time USTFCCCA National Coach of the Year. He has also been named Regional Coach of the Year 13 times while being a 10-time conference Coach of the Year.
Taking his whole coaching career into consideration, which also includes almost a decade at Florida, J.J. Clark has trained at least 109 different All-Americans with 377 All-American honors and counting. At Florida, he was the women’s cross-country coach and assistant track & field coach, an expertise he had built more and more as his career has progressed. But his work in 1998 saw him named the 1998 USA Elite Coach of the Year.
But Juliette Whittaker’s coach didn’t just dominate the collegiate circuit. He also took international assignments, and he has achieved feats even here. J.J. Clark was made the U.S. women’s middle distance assistant coach for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Before that, he was named the U.S. head coach for the 2001 World Championship team. He also participated in the 1997 World Championships as an assistant coach, where he was needed to share his knowledge in the middle-distance category.
Talking about wonder feats, the 2000 U.S. Olympic trials saw Clark’s wife (Jearl Miles-Clark) and his two sisters (Hazel Clark and Joetta Clark Diggs) sweep the podium places for the 800m qualification. In the 2004 Olympics, his wife and one of his sisters (Hazel) made the team again. In fact, Clark’s coaching particularly benefited his wife, whose 800m American record of 1:56.40 stood for 20 years. And many more of his collegiate athletes have gone on to have successful international competitions, too.
With such a rich background and decades of experience, Clark will no doubt guide Juliette Whittaker well. In 2024, with the able supervision of Clark, Whittaker won the 800m NCAA indoor and outdoor championships. The Olympics was a special feather as a Cardinal as it made her the only American in the final. She also became the first active Stanford athlete since 1932 to reach the finals of an Olympic track event.
But how is she looking at things as an Olympian? Have things changed for her motivation-wise? Well, she definitely feels freer.
What Are Juliette Whittaker’s Future Plans After the Paris Olympics?
Juliette Whittaker was the guest on the Ali on the Run Show episode of September 5, 2024. There, she discussed how her Paris experience was, how she managed the pressure and expectations. And how she is approaching her life at Standard as an Olympian. Talking about the pressure, the Stanford junior definitely feels like a chip has been lifted off her shoulder. As she said, “You know, I’m an Olympian and will forever be an Olympian, you know, no matter what I do in years to come, (it) is a very, very fulfilling thing.”
Continuing, she said she can plan for the next years without the pressure of feeling that necessity to qualify for the Olympics: “Obviously something I’ve dreamed up (Olympics) and hoped for, so to be able to achieve it, especially this early … I just think it’s so much more exciting and it takes a lot of pressure, I feel like, off for just years to come.”
But even though she is feeling happy and feels like an Olympian, she has realized at Stanford, the craze is not that high: “A lot of people were asking like, Oh my gosh, it’s going to be so insane to like go back to school like after going to the Olympics, which like I understood to a certain extent.”
But coming back to Stanford, it was a different experience: “But I feel like Stanford is such a unique place that it’s like I am not the only one that went to the Olympics. I am not even one that like medalled … Like we have some like one of our, like, swimmers, Tori (Huske), she went to the Olympics this summer and got five medals, three gold and two silver.” Juliette Whittaker realized what Stanford was all about in essence: “I didn’t feel as like unique or special as maybe I would at another school. Well, this is just what we do here (at Stanford). We go to the Olympics.”
But even though she gets back to the way things were, the Olympics has definitely impacted her life: “It doesn’t feel like I have to have this box that I have to check off anymore. I can dream of new goals and kind of like, yeah, try and achieve different things that I wasn’t necessarily focused on as much having this goal in the back of my mind. So, yeah, it’s kind of just like fun now.”
She has previously expressed an interest in a career in sports management or marketing. But how will her track and field story unfold? Well, we will have to wait and watch.
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