Monday, September 16, 2024
By Tori Wittenbrock
Associate Sports Editor
GREEN BAY – One of the biggest up and coming athletes in the world, Bay Port graduate Cordell Tinch, recently experienced a slight setback in his career, but according to him, it’s only motivation to keep pushing forward.
After suffering the heart wrenching disappointment of placing fourth at the Olympic Qualifying Trials in the Finals for the 110m hurdles in Eugene, Or. with a time of 13.03 — missing the cut for Paris by just 0.07 — Tinch said that although it didn’t go his way this year, he has high goals for his career going forward.
“My current goal is to never miss another global team that I am competing for. Whether it is an indoor worlds team, an outdoor worlds team, an Olympic team or a world relay team. I plan on if there is another Qualifying to go represent Team USA, I will no longer watch it on TV, I will be there in person,” said Tinch.
The Pitt State alum said that although he has always been athletic and taken an interest in other sports, track has always been his true passion.
“I played basketball, football and ran track as I grew up. I was just kind of drawn to track with the individuality of it. Knowing as a wide receiver I can go run the best route ever, but if the line doesn’t block, the quarterback doesn’t see it or the DB doesn’t play as well — there are too many factors where you can be great but get overshadowed. It’s the same thing with basketball. You can never miss a shot, but if you never touch the ball, there’s not much you can do. When it comes to track, it’s always just kind of you, a gun and your lane,” said Tinch.
During his time at Pitt State, Tinch became the fastest collegiate athlete breaking the record for the 110m hurdles and becoming the World Leader with a time of 12.96 — the first collegiate athlete to break a sub-13 second time.
This year, Tinch had a new hurdle to take on — the 2024 Olympics.
“It was a new experience. It’s something that as a track athlete it’s what you always dream of attempting to represent your country and it’s what most people understand track and field to be,” said Tinch.
“When you ask the average person about track the only thing they ever think happens is the Olympics. They tend to think people just never compete and then every four years everyone says, ‘Hey, let’s go run it up on the oval for a couple weeks,’ so obviously that’s our biggest goal to represent our country there because it’s the biggest experience for us.”
Despite missing the chance to compete for Team USA on the big stage, Tinch said that it was a learning experience and he knows he has other opportunities ahead.
“It didn’t go as I planned but it was an experience that I will learn from and grow from and hopefully next time I won’t be in this same position when I’m on the outside looking in,” said Tinch.
Tinch said that he has a full schedule ahead and will continue working to improve his time on the track.
“I’ve got a couple meets coming up next month in a couple different countries in Europe at the end of August and into September and then it will be into the offseason to take a break and get ready for next year,” said Tinch.
Although his time competing as a collegiate athlete has come to an end, Tinch said he continues to follow a similar training regimen as when he was a student-athlete at Pitt State.
“Training is still essentially the same as when I was in college. You schedule your meets and take a peek at how far out they are. You go through run cycles and go through conditioning early and build your footspeed throughout the year and try to be ready to peak at the right times,” said Tinch.
“I still train at the same college I was at, so I am still on a similar schedule as them, just a little bit delayed than the other college athletes. It’s also a little bit more intense since I don’t have to worry about waking up early for class and things like that.”
In addition to the physical side of things, Tinch said he also takes care of his mentality leading up to a race.
“I usually am pretty laid back in all honesty. When you start overthinking, or start putting pressure on yourself, that’s when you tend to run worse. I always try to just treat a big meet like another day, whether it’s an Olympic Trial or just a small meet that I’m doing with the college kids to start the year. I treat them all the same because in this sport you can’t control everybody else you can only control yourself. Sometimes someone is going to come out and run very fast that was unexpected and other times someone who is expected to run really fast runs really slow. You just kind of have to control what you can control and go have fun.”
Tinch said that he doesn’t usually focus on what he has to give up to work towards his goals, but on what he can learn from the process of training to be the best.
“It wasn’t really a sacrifice, it was more of a learning experience I had to go through in taking a break from school and everything and just being around people that will help you get your mental side right. There was never really a big sacrifice I had to make besides leaving what I knew to be my norm and going back to school taking that risk. That was probably the biggest sacrifice I had to make. You get really comfortable when you’re around something for a long time, so it’s tough to leave it and move to the next thing,” said Tinch.
However, Tinch said he knows that he would never be where he is today without his strong support system from his family, friends and the Green Bay community.
“I’ve always had a fantastic support group of family, friends and just people that I talk with that I always seem to learn something from. Whether it’s a good interaction or a bad interaction, I always try to take something from it to learn and move forward so I am just thankful for all of it,” said Tinch.
“I’ve always known a lot of people around Green Bay. Green Bay is such a small, big place. To other people it may seem like there are a lot of people here and it’s a big city, but it almost seems like everybody knows somebody who knows somebody and there is always that kind of trickle down effect of knowing people. There are a lot of people throughout Green Bay that I have interacted with or competed against and they all just kind of remember my name so I’ve always just kind of known people around town,” said Tinch.
“There are a lot of people that had no clue about my personality but then when I am out at the bars or at a Packers game or at the farmers market, my personality always gravitates me towards other people so a lot of people have recognized who I am, but not known anything else about me. Now I get more and more people that come up to me and say, ‘Hey, I saw this,’ or ‘I heard this about you,’ and that’s a nice feeling. At the same time, sometimes when you are back at home, you just kind of want to be left alone, so there is the good and the bad.”
As his career has taken off, Tinch has had the opportunity to travel to a variety of countries across the world including Hungary, China and throughout Europe.
However, there are a few places in particular that Tinch said stood out.
“Going to Budapest was a great time. Budapest is a beautiful, beautiful city. I went there this year and last year. Honestly, my favorite would probably be Monaco. Monaco was probably the first time I fully escaped my shell and was finally able to enjoy myself. It was the first time it didn’t feel like a business trip. Don’t get me wrong, I was still there for a job, but I was also there to let loose and have fun. I got to celebrate my birthday in a whole new country, so that just really added to the whole atmosphere of the trip,” said Tinch.
At the end of the day, Tinch said that the biggest lesson he has learned through all of his experiences has been to always look forward and move on from your mistakes.
“I definitely learned that we are all competitive — track and field is a very, very, very competitive sport. But at the same time, you can’t worry about every little thing that happens because there are going to be a lot of ups and downs throughout the season. One bad race does not define your year, but also one good race does not define your year,” said Tinch.
