Eric Holt clings to Olympic dream despite dry bank account

Asked recently how he makes a living, Holt replied, “I work in a psychiatric ward. I live with my parents.”

The U.S. Olympic Trials, which begin Friday night in Eugene, Oregon, will bring together world champions, Olympic medalists and the smiling stars of billboards and commercials. Among them will be dreamers like Holt, who are reminding us of the fundamental appeal of track and field: A watch doesn't care what you're wearing or whether your girlfriend buys you dinner. Buy yourself some time, and your life could change.

Holt, 29, decided years ago that she wanted to be an Olympian, but had no realistic evidence that it was possible. She ran on a partial scholarship in college but never competed in an NCAA championship. She has no sponsors, which means she pays for her own equipment, physical therapists and travel. She trained alone for years after working 13-hour shifts at a mental health clinic. She drove to races all over the Northeast, but rarely won any prize money and was often relegated to the B qualifiers.

“Eric wasn't one to follow logical dreams,” said Holt's best friend, Jacob Sweet. “I don't know if he knew it was OK to give up.”

Holt kept running for years, facing one obstacle after another. He joined Empire Elite, a semi-pro club that trained an hour away from his home in upstate New York. He competed in the 2021 Olympic Trials but didn't make the finals. He made it to the finals at the 2023 U.S. Championships, finishing last. He's still not on a national team, and he's not financially stable. But he hasn't stopped believing.

“I've wanted to be a professional athlete my whole life,” Holt said. “A lot of my sponsors tell me I'm not good enough. Every time I step on the track I just want to show my sponsors that I deserve to be a professional and that I'm not just some dumbass guy.”

Growing up in Carmel, New York, Holt played every sport he could think of but felt limited by them. He always felt like he needed a teammate to hand him the ball or a coach to pick him onto the team, both of which rarely happened. “I always felt uncomfortable in my body,” Holt says. In eighth grade, Holt joined the track team with his three older sisters. He loved the purity of running. It didn't matter who believed in him; all that mattered was who crossed the finish line first.

“No matter what I did in life, I always felt like I struggled to fit in,” Holt said. “I always felt like the hardest part of my athletic career was getting people to believe in me. I was always clumsy and goofy and never good at anything, but I felt like track was a way to express myself. It was only when the starting gun went off that I could be myself and feel confident.”

In his first season, he ran the mile in five minutes. Someone told him, “You could be a great athlete, maybe even go to the Olympics.” Ambition sparked, and he recruited kids to run on the Carmel High School track team.

“Eric convinced our team that we could go to the national championships, even though we were doing horribly,” said Sweet, who quit the football team to join the team. “He was just such an inspirational guy. He didn't understand his own limitations, and he didn't understand anyone else's limitations.”

Holt expected big-college programs to recruit him after he won a state championship and was named to the All-American team. They either ignored him or gave him a walk-on opportunity. He was big for a miler and ran with strong form in a sport that prizes a graceful stride.

“It was a horrible run,” he said. “I was running pretty fast, but it didn't look good.”

Binghamton University offered a one-third scholarship, and Holt was able to pay the rest in-state. Sweet studied English at Yale and followed his friend's progress somewhat obsessively. Sweet wrote a literary essay about Holt's efforts to run a sub-four-minute mile. Holt finished his collegiate career in 2018 with a time of 4:00.65.

“Oh man,” Holt told Sweet, “I just messed up your paper.”

No professional clubs were interested in Holt, and he considered a transfer, but Sweet insisted he could still break four minutes if he trained with him that summer. The pressure was strong enough for Holt to stay.

“He was the only person in the world who believed in my talent,” Holt said.

Holt's father, Michael, worked as a nurse at Four Winds Hospital in Katonah, New York, where Holt only needed a bachelor's degree to work. Michael hired Holt as a technician in the adolescent ward. Eric's main job was to prevent patients from self-harming or committing suicide.

“People were cutting themselves and there was blood everywhere,” Holt said. “There were moments where I thought, 'Oh my God, this is kind of a tough job.'”

Holt worked 13-hour days at Four Winds and trained at night. On his best days, the local high school football team would forget to turn off the track lights. Sometimes the lights would flicker in the middle of a workout. Holt ran by the faint light of a street lamp and the light from his watch.

In the winter, he would shovel snow from the track, and when it got too hard, Sweet would just ride along the road behind him at 15 mph, and Holt would hop in the car to warm up between runs.

Sweet moved to Massachusetts a year later. In the summer of 2019, Holt headed to the race alone. While having dinner with friends, Sweet checked his phone for real-time time. After three laps, he finished in 2 minutes, 59 seconds. When his final time read 3 minutes, 58 seconds, Sweet rose from the table and ran down the street, leaving his confused friend behind to celebrate.

Empire Elite discovered him on Strava

John Troutman and Tom Nohilly needed runners. They were assistant coaches at the New Jersey-New York Track Club when Hoka ended its sponsorship deal in early 2020. The head coach retired, the club folded, and Troutman and Nohilly started a new team called Empire Elite.

Nohily was spying on potential members on Strava, a social media app where runners post and compare their training routines, when she noticed something odd: One runner was doing extremely rigorous training sessions every night, from 11 p.m. until late at night, on a small track.

“What is this kid doing?” Nohily asked Troutman. “Is this guy crazy?”

They quickly investigated. The mystery man's name was Eric Holt, and he'd shown promising stats but then faded in college. But his training showed how much he wanted to be a runner. Nohily messaged Holt directly through Strava.

“We thought if you take a guy with that kind of drive and you put that drive to good use and you put an organization together, who knows how good he could become,” Trautman said.

Holt showed up to the Empire's next practice, where the athletes wore him out, and Trautmann, who had run at Georgetown University and competed in the 5,000 at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, saw potential in him.

“He had something that you don't see in a lot of other athletes,” Trautman said, “just this drive. A hatred of losing.”

Holt continued to work at the Four Winds until one day, when a 14-year-old girl jumped in front of a car and ran off. Holt sprinted over to catch the girl and tackled her to the ground. The girl kicked Holt hard in the knee, causing a bruise that lasted a month.

“I'm thinking: 'Do the elite runners out there have this problem?'” Holt said.

In early 2023, Holt decided to quit her job at Four Winds to focus full time on running. She made the most progress, but also felt the added financial strain. She moved back in with her parents, something she sometimes feels embarrassed to admit.

“My family is supportive,” Holt said, “but some people see me as a failure because they know I'm not making any money.”

Holt drives his parents' Hyundai Tucson to and from practice, and his girlfriend has a good job in New York City and pays when they go out to eat.

“My girlfriend comes from a different background than me,” Holt said. “We've been dating for over a year, and I know she hasn't told her parents about me yet. I want to be on the team, so that when I do eventually get introduced, it will be a good introduction.”

Sponsored runners don't have to worry about their bank accounts. They get massages twice a week. They can travel to races in Europe. Empire Elite paid for high-altitude training camps in Arizona last fall and this spring, which intensified Holt's training but also drained the club's funds.

“The club pays when it can,” Trautman said. “Right now, we're maxing out our credit cards.”

Holt believes that if he can land an endorsement deal, he will be able to move on to the next stage of his life. He wants to buy a Toyota Camry and date a girlfriend. He believes that if he competes in the Olympics, he will be able to get a deal with a shoe company.

“They want someone younger, even if they're not as good as me,” Holt said. “It's frustrating because I always tell people, 'If I'm OK with being 21, I'll do it.'

Sweet is writing a book about Holt, and she's not sure why she's spending so much time thinking about the friend she met when she was 8 years old.

“I've always had to expend so much energy proving that I was worthy of their time,” Sweet said. “Eric was the one who convinced me that I could achieve extraordinary goals. His expectations were just way above and beyond what was normal. It's so refreshing.”

This weekend at Hayward Field in Eugene, Sweet will watch Holt line up on the starting line. Holt will look at the competitors around him and realize they're not thinking about him. But years of hard work and sacrifice have given Holt something that others don't.

“This is a very cruel sport,” Holt said. “Only three people make it to the Olympics. My only quality is that I'm motivated. I know who my competition is and how good they are. I know they can win. When the last lap comes, I'll be ready.”