It takes a special breed of athlete to not only compete in the heptathlon and decathlon, but to excel in the events as well. Someone with the right body and mind to put everything on the track and field while competing. Someone like 2018 Hutchinson High School graduate Maguire Petersen, who this past winter was an All-American at St. John’s University, and is well on his way to doing so again this spring.
For those not familiar, the college heptathlon is a two-day, indoor track and field contest that combines the results of seven individual events: the 60-meter dash, long jump, shot put, high jump, 60-meter hurdles, pole vault and 1,000-meter dash. The decathlon is similar, except that it is outdoors and combines the results of 10 events: the 100-meter dash, long jump, shot put, high jump, 400-meter dash, 110-meter hurdles, pole vault, discus, javelin, and 1,500-meter run.
That’s a lot of running, jumping and throwing in two days, but Petersen, who is a senior at SJU this year, wouldn’t have it any other way.
“That’s what makes it fun,” he said about the list of events in which he competes. ”That’s what keeps me interested and always wanting to get better.”
This competitive mentality is nothing new for Petersen. In high school he was a standout football player for the Tigers in the fall, and in the spring he tried his hand at both baseball and track and field, even attempting to do both at one point before focusing on track and field. His decision paid off as he made several trips to the state meet and won the Class AA state high jump championship his senior year.
After high school, he went to the University of Wisconsin-Madison to try to play for the Division I Badgers football team, as well as the track and field team. That’s where he was introduced to the multi-event competitions as a redshirt freshman.
“I went to UW-Madison and high jumped there, then they converted me and wanted me to do the multis because of my body type,” he said. “I was OK at sprinting, I was OK at throwing, so they’re like, alright, you should try the multis.”
Football was still Petersen’s main desire, so when he realized he wasn’t likely to make the field for the Badgers, he transferred to St. John’s University in 2019 in hopes of making the team for the Johnnies. He spent all of that fall focused on football, and in the winter competed in the high jump. He set a SJU school record with a jump of 6-10.75, which is still his personal best. Then COVID shut everything down. He was named a “COVID All-American,” which was given to most athletes who qualified for the NCAA Division III National Championship, but the tournament was canceled.
Petersen was again forced to make a decision, so after two years of trying to have it both ways with football and track and field, he chose to focus on the latter.
“Just with everything going on with COVID, and we had really good receiver athletes (on the SJU football team), I just decided, ‘hey, maybe if I put a little bit more time in this track thing, maybe I could do well,’” Petersen said. “And it has paid off a little bit.”
MAKING GOOD CHOICES
Just like in high school when he made the choice to drop baseball and focus on track and field, since dropping football and focusing on track and field for the past two years, Petersen has starred for the Johnnies.
Although the 2021 indoor track and field season was canceled, he did compete in the outdoor season and was again an All-American, finishing in the top eight at Nationals. He also decided to get back into the multi-event competition and was a Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference decathlon champion.
“The decathlon is such a mental battle,” Petersen said. “There is no better feeling than actually finishing that mile at the end. … It’s just, it’s such a grind. You don’t really know how much of a grind it is until you do it.”
The key, Petersen said, is to score well on your strong events, and put the weaker events behind you. For him, the jumps, throws and sprints are his top events, while the pole vault and distance running events are where he loses ground on opponents.
“It’s always a next-event mentality in the decathlon,” Petersen said. “So like, hey, you can have such a great event in the high jump, and you might not have a great event in the pole vault, but you have to trick yourself that if I just do average in it, then the final score will be OK.”
Petersen has continued to star in the high jump and multi-event competitions for the Johnnies. This past winter, in his first full indoor track and field season since transferring to SJU, Petersen was an All-American in the heptathlon, finishing sixth at the National Tournament. He’s well on his way to earning another All-American honor in the decathlon, too. Earlier this month, he won his second straight MIAC decathlon championship, and his personal-best score of 6,677 ranked fourth best in NCAA Division III this season. The Outdoor National Championship is May 26-28 in Geneva, Ohio, and it could be his final time competing.
At the end of this year, Petersen will have an important decision to make about whether or not to return for a fifth year of school. Between COVID and redshirting his freshman year, he has one or two more years of eligibility left, but he also has chiropractic school and has his academics waiting for him.
Whatever his decision, he’s glad for the people and choices he’s made so far that have led him to the success he’s enjoying.
“It’s just nice to see all the hard work pay off over the past few years,” Petersen said. “It was a struggle doing the multis right away, it is for anyone pretty much. Finally having all that pay off and having it pay off at the highest stages, the Nationals or the conference meet that, that’s the nicest goal.”
