When he raced the 800 meters live on ESPN, everybody was watching, from east Chattanooga to the Southside, all the way to Kansas, even behind the bars in federal prison, where they cheered and clapped and hollered.

They saw the boy from back home become a man, as he took an early lead in the race, 50 meters out front, right there on the big screen TV.

Bro, you are shining.

Bro, you are putting on for the whole city!

Some of them even thinking: maybe, just maybe, if he can do it, so can I.

As they saw him sprinting, legs stretching out like a runaway train, they knew he could have gone either way: could have sold dope, dropped out, done time.

But he didn't. He chose something else. Another road.

It wasn't just a race they were watching.

It was an escape.

It was freedom.

*** 

The Lookout Mountain Conservancy (LMC) is a 34-year-old land trust that manages 1500 acres of privately-held land on Lookout Mountain as it unfolds into Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia.

The Conservancy also maintains a 50-acre public park in St. Elmo, just off Cummings Highway.

This park? There are 27 boulders, all meant for climbing and bouldering.

"It's the South's first natural, urban and public bouldering park," said Aasean Whitener, 19.

He would know. Years ago, LMC bought this land, which also connects to the beloved Guild-Hardy Trail. Those boulders? Scattered, smothered and covered in kudzu.

"Six inches," said Aasean.

Aasean - pronounced "A-Shawn" - is a member of the Howard Leadership Program, a part of the Conservancy that hires, mentors, trains, uplifts young men and women from The Howard School.

All those boulders and the park that holds them? The Guild-Hardy Trail running up the side of Lookout Mountain?

These intern leaders - these young women and men from Howard - manage, conserve, maintain and steward it all.

"We pride ourselves on not using heavy machinery beyond our own hands," said Aasean.

A dozen years ago, LMC's Robyn Carlton forged a partnership with school administrators to create The Howard Leadership Program.

"I love the job," Aasean said. "Ms. Robyn is like a mom to me."

Hourly wages, life-and-career skills, college tuition and, well, healing. Interns find refuge in nature and one another; a tiered system of leadership allows for interns to mentor interns, many of whom find new life.

"Before I joined Lookout Mountain Conservancy, life was just survival," said Jada, in her life story. "But now? I’m confident. I’m leading. I’m helping my family. And I’ve got a plan. That’s what LMC gave me. A future, and the strength to chase it."

Now? These intern leaders are the region's future conservationists.

They care for the 27 boulders and landing pads, which they built by hand.

They steward over a garden.

A greenhouse.

The beloved Guild-Hardy Trail, visited by tens of thousands of folks annually.

A food forest - buckwheat, peach trees, blueberries - on land that once held a meth house.

In their garden, interns grow food - lettuce, okra, beans, banana peppers - in raised beds with honeybee hives nearby.

"We use it to cook for ourselves and our families," said Aasean.

It's one of the most precious and underdog parks in Chattanooga, a rare everyman's land between Alton Park and Lookout Mountain where the two zip codes meet that's kept alive by interns the city often overlooks - John, who loves puzzle-solving and wants to become an electrician; Jada, so grounded and who is bravely considering serving in the US Navy; Quintez, bound for Tuskegee University; Monica, with a reservoir of strength and toughness; Jacqueria, who knows how to ask the right questions; Josten, thoughtful, a sci-fi fan and a future mortician; Corey, who loves Dave Goggins and has his eyes on the Navy Seals; and Jennifer, the future leader of the intern program, the glue and heart of it all.

And Aasean, the runner.

Late at night, through the trails, he runs mile after mile, part of his summer training plan, headlamp bobbing along the path, under the moon and stars.

"It's a little creepy," Aasean said, "but I like it."

Growing.

Running.

Running from.

Running to.

***

In elementary school, Aasean was the fastest kid - tag, Red Rover - so teachers nudged him: you should join the cross country team.

Chickamauga Dam, fourth grade, 2012. A mile-and-a-half loop. His granddad promised him ice cream at the end. ("Birthday cake," he said. "It's my favorite.")

He started slow; but halfway through, dropped the hammer.

"I locked fully in," he said. "I took it to heart.

"I was going so fast, I caught a nosebleed. I ate the blood and kept going."

That day, out of 350 runners, Aasean finished well.

"Top 10," he said.

He grew up in the old Buster Brown projects.

"Eight people living in a one-bedroom apartment," he said.

He is the son of a teenage mom who worked at the gas station, worked to the bone, but it was never enough. The water faucet would shut off. Lights, out. He got one pair of new shoes per year. Behind it all: hot violence.

"People dying. It became a social norm," he said. "I didn't understand it wasn't normal until a few years ago."

In middle school, they moved across town into a three-bedroom apartment.

"Now, with 12 people living there," he said.

His mom never gave up, getting him a spot in a local charter school. Then, East Hamilton. Then, The Howard School.

It was up and down, down and up. Grades good, then, not. A kid from the East Side now living on the Southside. His twin brother and older brother thick in it all: grand theft, gun charges, drug trafficking.

"That side on this side," he said. "There wasn't an in between."

Running became the in-between.

In high school, his coach at Howard dialed in on him. Tuskegee was interested, but then, coaches shook their head. You're not fast enough.

His coach at Howard told him straight: Aasean, you need to make a choice.

"So, I locked in," he said.

Grades went up, times shot down.

The mile: 4.53.

The 800: 2:07.

Then, the phone rang. And kept ringing. It was a coach from  the  University of Saint Mary, all the way in Kansas, some 11 hours and 700 miles away.

During his senior year at Howard, he would receive more than 30 college offers, but none matched the care of that Saint Mary's coach.

"He made sure I was great every day," he said. "That type of loyalty? I didn't look back."

Last fall, Aasean moved to Leavenworth, Kansas, population 2,700, northwest of Topeka, becoming a freshman student-athlete.

"Chattanooga is so small. That's why I chose Kansas," he said. "It was one of the farthest things."

"I get to be on my own completely. It teaches me how to be a man," he said.

He's tight with the coach there; babysits his kids, Thanksgiving dinner together, cornfield parties on Halloween. And the people?

"So many wonderful people," he said. "Kansas is beautiful. It's fresh."

Then, in April, at a meet in Wichita State Univ., ESPN cameras showed up.

"I got a 50 meter head-start," he said. "I went from first to fifth, but in a 14-person race, I'll take it."

His phone blew up: messages from all across the city.

And a Facetime call from federal prison.

It was a roomful of men - many serving life sentences. They'd been watching the race, all standing and cheering.

When he looks back on that day, that's the story he tells. The difference it made to others, not to him.

"There was always something in me that said: let's do something better," he said. "But not just for me."

As if those two laps around the track instead stretched anywhere, everywhere other than prison, poverty, death.

"Instead of fighting and joining gangs, people are going: oh, Aasean did this," he said.

Today, he's majoring in business marketing with a minor in accounting. An early investor in crypto, he's also managing a record label - Loyalty Over Everything - while running 60 miles a week in the summer.

"It forces me to lock in. It forces me to have a mindset that says: get up and get it. For the future me, my future kids, my future wife," he said.

***

Each morning, he and other interns arrive at the Conservancy bouldering park by 8 am.

"This used to be the oldest residential neighborhood in Chattanooga," he said.

Aasean and other interns give free tours of the property. (Anyone interested?)

They tell stories - the Conservancy's and their own - while pointing out the boulders once covered in kudzus, their true selves disguised until someone paid close attention.

They stop at the stone labyrinth, just above the pollinator garden.

"Originally, it was a well and a garage," he said.

To cap the well, the interns carried bags of cement, shoulder over shoulder, up the hill.

"150 bags of cement," he said.

"Pure hands, pure strength," said John, another intern.

Now, it's a place for quiet and contemplation.  

"I feel like we can do anything if we put our minds to it," said Aasean.

The tour goes by the bee hives.

"Usually, when we take the top off without smoking, they get to trippin'," said John, who's planning on becoming an electrician through a degree at Chattanooga State. ("I like wiring. I like the puzzle behind it. I like being smarter. I like learning new stuff.")

They are historians, honoring the past: from indigenous leaders like Chief Wauhatchie to the old train tracks running up the side of Lookout.

"One day, the train was transporting molten glass," said Aasean. "It got derailed and embedded in the ground, millions of pieces of broken glass."

They stop by the park's show-stopping view - "we got offered a million dollars for this land," he said - that they call 'the party spot.'

"One of the most beautiful views in the city," said Aasean.

Here, at the party spot, on Thursday, July 24, LMC is hosting its annual Shrimp Boil - a big party, with music, 1885 Grill, drinks and - best of all - the interns, shaking hands, breaking bread, telling stories.

It's a fundraiser for the Howard Leadership Program. Aasean, John and all the interns will be there.

Tickets can be found here. Please join Aasean and the interns for a most special night.

The spot can hold 200 folks, but somehow, just somehow, even more will be there in spirit, standing and cheering, from the east side of town to the south, from midwest cornfields to federal prison - for the Kansas freshman, the intern leader, the runner named Aasean, legs pumping like a breakaway train, who's running for them.

"To give them motivation to do something different. To motivate people in the streets," he said. "People that grew up dead broke, no hope, no food.

"I grew up in the same situation.

Follow. Run this road. Escape. If I can, so can you.

"It not for me," Aasean said. "It's for them."

(This story was edited on Monday, July 14, to reflect corrected 800 and mile times.)

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This story is 100% human generated; no AI chatbot was used in the creation of this content.

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