FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT Evan O’Kelly Director of Communications O: (406) 657-2130 E: evan.okelly@msubillings.edu Wednesday, March 9, 2016 Robert runs road rarely reached in career with ‘Jackets
Putting the finishing touches on a legendary career with the Yellowjackets, senior Robert Peterson owns eight school records and represents his hometown as a star for MSUB. MSUB SPORTS – Robert Peterson entered the 2016 Great Northwest Athletic Conference Championships with somewhat of a chip on his shoulder. The Montana State University Billings senior was back at the Ford Idaho Center in Nampa, Idaho for the final time in his career, and he wanted to go out with a bang. Two seasons earlier, as a sophomore, Peterson shocked the field and sped to the title in the mile with a school-record time of 4:10.76 on his 21st birthday. It wasn’t the first hint of brilliance Peterson had displayed in his career, as he was the 2012 GNAC Freshman of the Year during his first-ever cross country season. But when he returned to the banked, blue track as a junior in 2015, the mile title evaded him by less than a second as he finished as the runner up. “I went into it this year really wanting to win it again, but I also knew there was a lot of good competition,” Peterson commented on this year’s mile championship race. “I think I had a bit of an advantage being the underdog, because I hadn’t run the mile or three-k until the conference meet this year.”
Among the good competition across the conference, Peterson’s top opponent turned out to be David Ribich of Western Oregon, who engaged Peterson in a step-for-step battle into the final straightaway. In an ultimate burst of energy that would make Michael Phelps proud, Peterson leaned across the line and edged his opponent by one onehundredth of a second. “My heart was just pounding so fast, and I really didn’t know he was that close to me until the final few steps,” Peterson remembered. “I crossed the line and thought I might have got him, but I wasn’t sure until I saw the scores posted by the clock.” When the dust settled Peterson had reclaimed his crown as GNAC Mile Champion, and had broken his own school record in doing so with a time of 4:10.13. Peterson wasn’t finished there, as he demolished the record once again a week later in Seattle, storming to a berth in the NCAA Division II National Championships with a time of 4:07.67. It’s the second straight year Peterson will represent MSUB in the national meet, where he claimed United States Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association second-team All-America honors by finishing 10th in the mile a year ago. Peterson competing at the 2016 GNAC Indoor Track and Field Championships at the Ford Idaho Center in Nampa, Idaho on Feb. 19, 2016.
“Physically at this point, there’s not much more I can do, and right now I am mentally strong,” said Peterson. “I am really confident.”
MSUB head cross country and track and field coach Dave Coppock commented last week that Peterson is peaking at the perfect time in the season, improving with each race and setting himself up to be in top form when he competes as the No. 12 seed at the national meet Friday evening in Pittsburg, Kan. The Billings Skyview High School alumnus has ambitions to repeat as an All-American, but hopes to break into the top-8 this season to earn first-team honors. Though Peterson still has the outdoor season to look forward to in the spring, Friday will be the final indoor meet of his collegiate career. A champion through and through, Peterson has lived through running, letting it take him to his highest points and enduring the dark stretches when it has sucked away his last ounces of energy. LEG 1 – 1,000 MILES “There was just something about it. It hurt, but I really liked the pain and the atmosphere around it.” – Robert Peterson on falling in love with running as a kid. Peterson’s competitive year technically starts in mid-August, when the Yellowjackets officially report for fall training for the cross country season. As a junior in 2014, Peterson raced to a 13th-place finish at the NCAA Division II West Region Championships, as he earned a spot in the national meet which was another program first.
Perhaps the friendly confines of Amend Park in Billings aided Peterson’s finish in the race, as 2014 also marked the first time the Yellowjackets hosted a regional cross country meet. “It was definitely exciting, but I think I was about the last person on the team to find out we were hosting,” Peterson said with a smile. “I hung with the leaders for about five miles, but the last mile I was just in so much pain. I knew I had to hold on, and if I had been 10 seconds slower I wouldn’t have made it (to nationals).” As a fifth-grader enrolled in his local YMCA track program, Peterson never could have imagined that he would one day represent his hometown university in a national collegiate meet. Striving to reach All-American status with a top-40 finish, Peterson was among the middle of the pack two-thirds of the way through the national meet at Tom Sawyer State Park in Louisville, Ky. But several inches of rain in preceding days had created mud-filled patches throughout the course, and Peterson faded to finish No. 100 in the field of 245 runners. “Knowing what I know now, I would have changed a few things like how I went out in that race,” Peterson said. Shifting his focus to a return appearance at the nationals in the fall of 2015, Peterson ramped up his training to an unprecedented level in the eyes of Coach Coppock. “I could see him start to move up to a national scale after his second year,” Coppock said. “The first indication he could run at a national level was when he won the mile at the GNAC indoor meet in 2014. I knew the next couple of seasons that the focus was going to be on getting him to nationals, whether that was in cross country or track.” Peterson tore through Billings in the fall, covering more ground than any of the other 100,000-plus human beings inhabiting Montana’s largest city. Single runs could extend to as much as 20 miles, and Peterson strived to break 100 miles in a week for his workouts. “There is just something about triple digits,” Peterson said. “I was hitting 90-mile weeks last year, but I just had to go for 100 this year.” Peterson crossing the finish line at the 2014 NCAA Division II West Region Cross Country Championships, hosted by MSUB at Amend Park in Billings.
Averaging 14-15 miles per day, Peterson had covered 1,000 miles in workouts alone leading up to the GNAC Championships hosted by Western Washington University on Oct. 24. Peterson was in the best shape of his life, but warning signs emerged that he was pushing himself to the limit of what his body could handle. Despite running a school-record time of 30:15.08 in the 10-kilometer west region championship meet at Ash Creek Preserve on the campus of Western Oregon University, Peterson finished in 13th place and narrowly missed a return berth to the national meet last fall. The disappointment was difficult to handle at first, as Peterson had been determined to have a better showing at the national meet. He settled for a USTFCCCA All-Region medal for the second year in-a-row, and shifted his focus towards the indoor track and field season that lay ahead. LEG 2 – FROM GRASS AND HILLS TO TRACK MEET THRILLS
Peterson’s reclamation of the GNAC mile title on Feb. 20 was the latest reminder that his ramped-up training regimen this year was still effective, although it was his leg in the Yellowjackets’ distance medley relay race that was perhaps the most exciting of the weekend. In the most unique race at the meet, the DMR features legs of 1,200 meters, 400 meters, 800 meters, and 1,600 meters layered in that order. Naturally slotted in to anchor the race with the longest distance, Peterson awaited his turn to receive the baton after Josh Panasuk, Landon Polkow, and Liam McKay made their way through their respective distances. Entering the race with the goal of a top-3 finish, Peterson knew he could achieve that feat as he picked up the baton and saw the backs of Simon Fraser University and Alaska Anchorage with a generous head start. “I wasn’t anticipating winning, but I was still going to do the best I could and try to get a school record,” Peterson said. Then it got interesting. The one advantage Peterson had running the longest leg of the race laid within the significant amount of time he had to make up the gap between him and his opponents. With three laps to go Peterson could read the school names printed on the backs of his opponents’ jerseys. As the bell ringing signaled the final lap, Peterson could hear the rustle of his opponents’ numbers as they battled the four safety pins holding them into place on the front of their jerseys. Flying around the final corner, Peterson knew he was the strongest of the three and took the race into his own hands. He strode across the finish line, simultaneously helping the ‘Jackets capture the team title and break a school record. “That was really cool because it was MSUB’s first time winning that race at the conference meet,” Peterson said. “Everyone on the team did what they needed to do, and everyone pushed through and fought for it.” The record-breaking time of 10:06.41 by MSUB’s DMR team was unique in that it was one of the few races that truly involved direct teamwork rather than individual achievement. While each individual athlete in a meet has the chance to contribute points to his or her team, it took a combination of the four to claim the top prize and all-conference honors in one of the highlights of the season for the ‘Jackets.
MSUB’s 2016 GNAC Champion Distance Medley Relay Team (from left) Josh Panasuk, Landon Polkow, Liam McKay, and Robert Peterson.
THREE SPORT ATHLETE While most sports feature distinct seasons and off-seasons, the practice and preparation doesn’t vary greatly depending on the time of year. In baseball, teams work on hitting in the off-season, and hitting during the season in the week of a game. Basketball players put shots up all summer in preparation for the season, and then put up even more shots after practice in the fall. Exercises and workouts vary throughout the year, but no athletes, with the exception of runners, quite experience the rigors of being in season for the entirety of an academic year and having to shift the focus of training constantly throughout. For Peterson, there is no off-season. Cross country hands off to indoor track and field, and by the time he returns from the indoor championships he’ll have less than two weeks until MSUB’s first outdoor meet. Additionally, Peterson’s currency of 100-mile weeks is not accepted by the banking institution of track and field, which requires more focused and intense, shorter-interval training. “Now that it is track season I am running faster, but I am only putting in 65-70 miles per week,” Peterson said. “I went from long runs up to 20 miles to now maybe going one mile at the most.” Peterson’s training varies from day-to-day, as Coppock guides him through a sequence of hard starts out of the gate to a more Peterson leading the pack during MSUB’s 2015 Yellowjacketmeasured pace to achieve. “The success he saw starting his Battlin’ Bear Invitational at Laurel High School. sophomore year really motivated him to keep training hard, and he has bought into what I wanted him to do,” Coppock said. “He trains constantly all year long, moving his mileage up and putting in big training even in the summer. He has gotten stronger every year as a result of that.” On top of his school records in cross country in the 8k and 10k, and in indoor track in the mile and 3,000 meter races, Peterson also holds MSUB’s records in the outdoor 1,500 meter and 5,000 meter races. While his current focus is on performing well at the indoor championships this weekend, Peterson is also looking ahead to the outdoor season with ambitions to continue to turn heads. “For outdoor I just hope we can come together as a team, and do what we always do at the conference meet – surprise everyone,” said Peterson. “We are kind of at the back of peoples’ minds and then we get there and show them what we are made of.” RUN BOB, RUN “He has lifted our program to a higher level and set a much higher standard for us. Instead of looking at making it to a conference championship, we are now looking to qualify people for nationals. The team can see now that it’s possible to
move up to that next level, and Robert has paved the way for that.” MSUB head coach Dave Coppock on senior Robert Peterson. Coppock had known about Peterson by the time he reached his senior year at Skyview, but wasn’t convinced he had the potential to develop into much more than a strong runner in MSUB’s program. When he graduated high school, Peterson’s best mile was around 4:30, and Coppock knew that it would take determination and a high-octane work ethic for him to cut his time down to a competitive level. Peterson came through with flying colors. “By his sophomore year he started to emerge as a leader, and the rest of the team saw what they could do and bought into that level of dedication,” Coppock said. “Now, he’s not only going to nationals, but wants to compete well and go beyond just making the cut.” Take a drive down Rimrock Road on any given afternoon and chances are you’ll catch a glimpse of Peterson striding through another lengthy workout. While it’s impossible to say what he’s thinking during that run, it would be safe to guess the memory of his six-mile run on the first day of practice in high school that brought him to his knees flashes through his mind. The remnants of stress fractures and shin splints that forced him to redshirt in his freshman season at MSUB still linger, and the motivation to return to the team after sitting out is a chip he still carries. The look of calmness on his face as he clips along at a pace unmatched by any other Yellowjacket past or present, eyes almost closed and head tilted slightly back as his body shifts to auto-pilot. The sense of accomplishment after overcoming initial doubt that he wasn’t good enough to compete in college or at MSUB. The sense that he has become one of the greatest athletes in the school’s history, and the path his sneakers carve will remain boundless as his legacy lives on permanently.