By COOPER RATHMANN
On this week’s edition of Who the Buc are You? I got the chance to speak with my good friend and fellow Beloit College athlete Conall Witherite’28. He is currently a first-year student living at the beautiful spectacle of 609 Emerson and plans on running track and field for both indoor and outdoor seasons along with potentially joining cross country the next season.
For a little bit of background, Conall hails from the city of Round Lake, Illinois, not meant to be confused with Brown Lake, Illinois, a city that he said, “sounds quite dirty”. Besides that possible mix-up of hometowns with dirty lakes, Conall is a very involved student on this campus that enjoys “playing video games, working out, and helping others work out”.
In terms of athletic prowess, Conall has been a part of athletics for quite some time now. More specifically, he told me that “I started track back in middle school [7th grade] and my friends were like ‘hey we should join’ so then I joined”. Seems like a simple enough start but over the later years he had to endure not running during Covid along with a severe injury to his back during his senior year, which “Stopped me from running for 4 to 5 ish months straight, but as of today I’m in the recovery phase. I’m still doing practice [lightly] and everyday I’m working back to where I was before”. In addition to being primarily in sprints, he told me a story about how he “tried discus before and almost cut someone’s head off-almost knocked someone out” and although that seems silly it’s probably a good thing he called it quits on throws. The other interesting part of his athletic career was that he wrestled his sophomore year, which acts as a warning sign to not mess with Conall, otherwise you’ll be pinned before you can even blink.
Outside of athletics, Conall is goated because he has the inner circle details about a very special place on campus, Commons. Whether you appreciate Commons or not, it’s important to shout out the student workers that keep the student body fueled for the day. After asking him about a general overview of his job he told me that “I can’t say everything about it but I say my personal job experience is pretty good…I fry food and clean disgusting stuff – you know like random things that I think I should get paid more for because like whenever we’re done with the fryer it’s absolutely vile”. Luckily, he works very diligently both for cleaning and behind the scenes in the kitchen and additionally he said “We unfortunately waste a lot of food…I feel like most of the food is a hit or miss. Like we had a key-won salad not a single person touched and they just dumped it out”. It’s a shame they have done that occasionally but Conall luckily recognizes the problems and has been very conscious of Bon Appetit’s supply. Although he’s only been on campus for around three months, he said “for a main course meal, they had BBQ chicken one night and it was actually so good, not overdone or anything it was perfect”. Yet at the end of the day, I wanted to get the inside scoop on the chocolate chip cookies and how they are always so good and consistent to which he responded with “I don’t see people make the cookies, but most of the ones we get are from somewhere else. They just put it in a massive rotating heater”, meaning there the mystery and secret formula for the chocolate chip cookie’s success will remain unknown.
On a more serious and personal note, I asked Conall a few odds-and-ends type questions about his interests and life passions. The best animal of all time to Conall is “probably a marmot or a capybara because like I got guinea pigs at home and they’re kind of related to them they’re like giant guinea pigs they’re so cute-no spiritual level connection though”. Continuing further down the rabbit hole, I asked him the most relatable “SpongeBob” character to his personality and he subsequently answered “I resonate with SpongeBob the most. He’s goofy, a little bit freaky, happy, and always like ‘sunshine and rainbows’. I’m happy like that most of the time too and he’s always thoughtful with his friends”, a very wholesome answer. However, his pride and passion, perhaps a lifelong dedication, is “playing “Brawl Stars” every day. I think I have spent around 300 dollars…and I think I’m spending more money on it tomorrow. I’d honestly rather spend money on brawl terms [rather than paying tuition]”. Although his investment in “Brawl Stars” seems strenuous, I have to respect the grind.
At the end of the interview, I asked Conall, the Xbox controller-wielding, capybara loving, fitness guru, what his message to the future of Beloit College was, saying “Even if you have doubts or days that you tell yourself ‘I don’t want to do it’ that’s when you got to put in the work and effort to be the very best”.
Thank you Conall for being such a positive influence on the student body, athletics, Commons, and most importantly your friends, never change.
Featured Graphic created by Cooper Rathmann’28
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