Titus credits his teammates

After running track and wrestling in high school, junior Noel Titus made his way onto the Carnegie Mellon men’s track and field team. Currently, Titus is a civil and environmental engineering major. “I hope to be a Geotech engineer and do soil analysis,” Titus said, speaking to his future career goals.

Titus is proud to be a Tartan. “Going places and repping our school, no one here really knows what we do,” Titus said.

This season, Titus hopes to improve his performance on the second day of University Athletic Association Championships (UAAs). “My freshman and sophomore year I did well on the first day, but struggled on the second day,” Titus said. Outdoor UAAs are in two weeks at home for the track and field team. Currently, Titus is building up for his races. “I hurt my hamstring, but it is feeling better now. I mostly need to not be intimidated,” Titus said.

The most important competition of UAAs is at Washington University in St. Louis. “They have a ton of depth in sprints and jumps,” Titus said. “At indoor UAAs, we tied for second place and we don’t even have an indoor track.”

One of Titus’ most memorable moments on the track was running the 4x400 meter relay. “I had a rough day, I had bombed the 60- and 200-dash, coach decided that I was going to run in the 4x400 relay, and that I was going to be the anchor and I don’t usually run relays, so I was freaking out; it all worked out in the end. Doug O’Connell, Ben Nealey, and Mike Standish took second place,” Titus said.

Titus and the track and field team have had a lot of fun together. “One time in the shower, Ben saw a cockroach and shrieked. Then the cold water came on and he shrieked again,” Titus said, laughing.

Titus finds a great deal of support from his teammates. “Success is dependent on all the people who don’t compete, because I wouldn’t be able to motivate myself through all of the workouts without all of my teammates,” Titus said.

“Noel is one of the athletes on the team that everyone knows they can count on to come through in a pretty wide range of events when the pressure’s on. It’s great to have that sort of presence and leadership out of a junior,” said senior chemical and biomedical engineering major and teammate Robert Morhard.