In the process of becoming an 11-time individual College Conference of Illinois & Wisconsin (CCIW) champion and 10-time All-American in cross country and track and field, Amber Druien ’07 White surpassed her own expectations far more frequently than any of her opponents. She has continued to find new challenges to overcome in an athletic career that has extended well past graduation.
Prior to enrollment at North Central College, White planned to make athletics a relatively small part of her collegiate experience. Her goals were focused more on personal fulfillment than competitive challenge.
“I just wanted to run a little more,” she said. “I felt like I had some unfinished business from high school, so I wanted to run for maybe one or two more years. I came in without any expectations, other than a personal record or two.”
White soon began to feel capable of more as an athlete, and began to focus on bigger game during her sophomore year. As the outdoor track and field season wound down, a challenge issued by coach Mahesh Narayanan ‘97/M ’01 put White in position to make a national meet and earn All-America honors for the first time in the 800-meter run.
“Going into our first last-chance meet, Mahesh put me in the fast heat of the 800,” White recalled. “To do that, he had to put down my seed time at 2:13, and prior to then I had only run 2:17 or 2:18. I said, ‘This is a really fast time, I can’t run that fast.’ And he said, ‘I wrote it down, so I guess you’ve got to do it now.’ Sure enough, I ran 2:13 in that race and made it into the national meet.”
White built upon that success the next year with CCIW championships in the indoor 800-meter and mile runs and distance medley relay and outdoor 800- and 1,500-meter events, as well as indoor All-America accolades in the 800 and DMR. She concluded the outdoor season in the national championships at Benedictine University.
Despite a busy weekend, White was able to win national titles in the 800 and 1,500 on the final day of the competition. She became the second athlete in the program’s history to win multiple national titles in the same championship meet.
“The most important thing was just running smart races,” she said. “In both of those final races, I did not take the lead until about halfway through the race. Someone else always pushed the pace, and I ran my own race and was confident that I had the speed, strength and fitness to cover the distance. You just know when it’s time and you take it over.”
White began her senior year by winning the CCIW individual championship in cross country, leading the Cardinals to the team trophy as well as the program’s first appearance as a team at the national championships. She repeated the previous year’s conference championship victories and earned All-America accolades indoors in the mile run and DMR and outdoors in the 800 and 1,500.
“(The national cross country championship) was such a great experience,” White said, “especially because we had all been running together for a few years, and that was our goal. To be the first team ever to make it that far was a monumental experience because we’re a significant part of history and all that hard work paid off.”
Still the holder of North Central records in the outdoor 800 (2:08.56) and 1,500 (4:24.56) and indoor 800 (2:11.57) and mile (4:51.38) and the owner of the fourth-highest total of All-America plaques in North Central’s program’s history, White extended her running career to longer distances after graduation, leading to an appearance in the U.S. Olympic Trials marathon in 2016.
“I found new success running the longer distances that I never thought I would run because I was strictly middle-distance in college,” she said. “It didn’t come easy and it didn’t come right away. Just like in college, you put in the hard work and mental dedication. It’s cool that it’s been such a big part of my life for so long.”
