Track & Field | April 09, 2019

Freshman middle distances runner Sam VanDorpe has gotten his USC career off to a strong start, posting a PR of 1:49.61 in the 800m race last week at the Jim Click Invitational, the top freshman time in the country so far.  VanDorpe graduated from Mater Dei HS in Santa Ana, Calif in 2018 as an honor roll student. His then-800m PR of 1:51.07 set in winning the 2018 CIF Masters Meet, established the Mater Dei school record,  He later placed third in the 800m at the state meet. VanDorpe also excelled in cross country, winning three MVPs in his time at Mater Dei. He captained his school's track and cross country teams in both his junior and senior years.  His 48.0 anchor leg on Mater Dei's 4x400m relay helped capture a league title. Now a Trojan, VanDorpe is confident that he can continue his successful approach into college competition.
 
Q: I read online that you like the bands Tame Impala and Odezsa and the TV show Curb Your Enthusiasm. How did you get into them?
 
S.V.: For Tame Impala, that's a band that my dad introduced me to actually. He played their first album in the car. That was before I even started listening to my own music, so that was just kind of what I was hearing in the car. When I started listening to music on my own, I was thinking, "What bands do I like?", and Tame Impala was just kind of ingrained in me. It's a really cool, relaxing type of vibe. It was kind of the same thing for Odezsa, although that's more electronic, but same alley, so I like both of those. Curb Your Enthusiasm was actually a show that my grandpa showed my dad, who in turn showed me. It's funny, because my grandpa is usually a really stern guy, but that show is just so off-the-wall. It was really funny to see something that he thought was hilarious. You know, there's a lot of humor and cheap jokes, and it's just so well made in terms of comedy. So I enjoy it, and it's something me and my dad watch too, so it's kind of special.
 
Q: How do you feel your time at Mater Dei, a rigorous academic school with a high-achieving athletic program, prepared you for your transition to USC?
 
S.V.: I mean, the training that we do here is what I was doing at Mater Dei, but more intense in every aspect. When I came here I was familiar with lifting on a regular basis and doing all different types of workouts. But coming here, obviously this is next level, so everything gets bumped up to a higher degree which couldn't have and shouldn't have been done in high school. But it prepared me I think perfectly for coming here, especially in my junior and senior year when I started to really get after it in workouts and take weights seriously. That kind of knowledge coming in really paid off. Academically speaking, it was pretty hard. I tried to take honors classes and AP classes, and I think some of the high AP tests transferred over and got some of my GEs off, which really helps when you're trying to plan schedules. I have a minor in real estate development, so that kind of frees up space to get those classes done and not be stressing about getting everything done in four years. So, the academics really helped, and athletically they know what they're doing as well.
 
Q: In 2018, you set Mater Dei's school record in the 800m with a time of 1:51.07. What was it like to accomplish that?
 
S.V.: So that was my goal actually going into senior year. I wanted to get ideally as many records as possible, but that was the main one. I wanted to try to get the 400m one. I ended up not getting it because the day that I ran the open 400m it was super windy, so I ran like a 49 low, but I was fighting like 15 mile an hour winds on the backstretch. But that wasn't the point… the point was to get the 800m one, and I think I got it at the Masters Meet for CIF and I won the Masters Meet too, so it was cool winning that really big meet, getting the school record. Everything was just coming together, and it was just one of those goals that I'd set a long time ago and every day I went to practice, and that was my motivator, what I was thinking about. I wanted to get that record, and to finally get it felt really good. It was a lot of gratification.
 
Q: Growing up in Orange County were you a USC fan?
 
S.V.: Yeah, but it wasn't… I mean there were kids whose parents went and my dad didn't go, he went to Cal Poly Pomona, he did his own thing. It was always a respected school. I always knew SC was a really good school. It was always SC and UCLA, but Orange County kind of leaned more toward SC, but it's not like there weren't a ton of UCLA fans. I never really had a big stance on it until high school. I decided I wanted to come here in the 6^th grade actually, but not because I was a huge USC fan. It was because that's when I knew I wanted to do real estate development. That was before running and everything, so I wanted to come here regardless of sports. Then the running developed, and that played a big role in me coming here, and now it's a huge part of my USC experience. So it's just kind of cool how it's all come together, because 6^th grade me just knew I wanted to build stuff that looked cool. I was playing with Legos still; I was just a kid. But, you know, I wanted to know who built the buildings, who did all that; that seemed like a cool job. My dad was like "yeah, you should do it", and I asked "What's the best school for it?", and he said USC. My dad's a structural engineer, so he works a lot with the developers, so he is kind of in on the market, and said USC was the place to be. So I was like, "Well, that's what I want to do. If I change my mind I got some time, but I never changed my mind and now it worked out.
 
Q: Do you know where you want to be located for real estate development?
 
S.V.: Yeah, Southern California, like L.A., OC ideally. I mean if when I'm young I have to go somewhere kind of faraway I wouldn't be against that, just because I'm young, I can move around. This is kind of the spot to be if you're a developer, so I don't see myself going anywhere, but I'm not against it in the short run.
 
Q: What other sports did you play growing up, and did they translate at all to your running career?
 
S.V.: Yeah, so in elementary school I played basketball and baseball. Then I stopped playing baseball and started playing lacrosse in 4^th grade. So, from 4^th grade to 8^th grade I was in basketball year round, and then lacrosse for spring and I think a little bit of fall. I did those until 7^th grade. After 7^th grade I decided I was going to be done. I think I did lacrosse, but I stopped basketball because I was just getting too competitive. I was on a really good AAU team. I wasn't the best player, but I was good enough to be on the team. But going to those tournaments, it just gets so loud, being 13 or 12 years old. It wasn't my style. So I'd always done the mile in PE, and I was pretty good at it. I'd always kind of identified as someone who could run, and in eighth grade I was like, "I'm quitting this big sport in my life, but I can't just stop playing sports. I still have a lot of my youth left. I've got to take advantage of it. I've got to play a sport." So I went into running, I joined this club and at the time I thought I was taking it seriously, but I was only running like twice a week. So, I really didn't get better based off training, but that is kind of where running started for me. And then going into high school I got on a real program, you know, running six days a week. From there, I started seeing big results.
 
Q: What are your team and individual goals for your USC career?
 
S.V.: I mean the team goal is always to win national championships. I mean, these guys are insane. In high school, there are a couple guys who are good, but sometimes I would be like, "I don't know if my team could go and win CIF, so it's just up to me to do what I can do. But coming here, everyone is so good at what they do, so that confidence in what everybody's doing is a lot stronger. You know, I trust that everyone will get done what they need to get done. As far as personal goals, for this season, I want to run 1:48 low ideally. I think my coach is planning on me going to the Junior USA, which is the qualifier for the Under-20 World Championships. I don't know if I'm going to make it to the World Championships, but that would be in mid-July anyway, which is deep into when I should be getting base training in for the season. I don't even know what my coach is thinking about that… not that I'm questioning what he's thinking. It's just we haven't really talked about that since it's kind of far out there. But my goal for freshman year is 1:48.  Ideally, like in my whole athletic career, I want to make the NCAA Final, and just compete at the highest level and try to get a win if possible. I mean, things are always changing, so it's hard to say like, "I'm going to get a win and that's that", but that's not off the table. The sky's the limit; I want to set myself to run next year close to a four-minute mile, if not under, and probably a 1:47 or 1:46 800m. As far as career goals, I just want to set up that real estate aspect, get good grades, really engage myself in my classes, make sure that I'm learning. I'd rather feel like I learned something in a class then just studied random stuff and got a good grade, if that makes sense. I'll take time to look into something that's interesting, just because I want to set myself up for success and ideally, after this is all done, I can go get a good job somewhere in the real estate industry.
 
Q: You list Kobe Bryant as your sports hero. Could you go into detail on that?
 
S.V.: Yeah, so a big part of running is the mental aspect. I mean when you look at it, obviously it's extremely physical, but your body follows what your mind does – I'm a big believer in that, and Kobe Bryant really resembles having the mindset that forces your body to do what your mind wants. So, I set that goal for getting the school record way before I was in shape or capable of doing it, but that was in my mind for a really long time, and I trained until it was a reality; and he kind of spoke championships into reality and he just showed up early, worked hard, and just never looked for excuses. He always looked for extra things that he could do. He was always acknowledging the fact that the way to the top is the hardest way, and if you're going to get to the top, you've got to be ready to take on stuff that the average person couldn't, that most people are looking to avoid. You've got to welcome that. So it's kind of going against your natural instinct to avoid conflict and avoid responsibility and pain, and you've just got to run right into it. And I think that's what his whole motto was – the Black Mamba mentality.