By Steven Pascoe | Special to The Herald

Editor’s Note: Steven Pascoe is a member of the Cross Country and Track and Field teams, these four features were written for the Sports Reporting course. 

Meet a program record holder from Germany: Hannes Fahl  

Hannes Fahl from Rheinbach, Germany is in his second year at Arkansas State and a record-holding member of the men’s Cross Country and Track Team.

Fahl is the school record holder in the Men’s 800 meter run with a blazing 1:48.70. Fahl is also the 2023 Sun Belt Conference Indoor Men’s Mile and 800 meter champ and the Sun Belt Conference Outdoor Men’s 1,500 meter champion.

Fahl competes in the 800 meter, 1,500 meter and mile run. Coming to the United States was a “big adjustment” for Hannes. 

The biggest challenge has been English. Hannes knew some English before coming over.

 “I learned English in high school, but only certain words for when we would analyze a speech” 

Back home he considered himself extroverted. When moving here he noted people were more social than back at home. 

“People are so open and extroverted at A-State,” Fahl said. “People will come up and start conversations with him which is not very normal back home unless you know them.”

Fahl now sees himself as “a more introverted guy, especially when more people are around.”

Fahl picked Arkansas State because a friend from Germany was already on the team and told him how good the team was. That friend is fellow German distance runner, Lasse Funck who had been on the team two years prior. 

The other reason Fahl decided to pick A-State was to have “a room to myself, that’s what I wanted most” along with an above-average education.

The downside to A-State was being far from his family. Fahl only sees his parents at Christmas and in the summer. He video calls his loved ones every day though. 

After school, Fahl is still uncertain what he wants to do. Fahl determines his direction by “running and how good I become at it”. 

Outside of school and cross country, Fahl likes to eat. He has narrowed down his two favorite American foods, with JTown’s and their JTown’s Burger and burritos with guacamole from Chiptole being his favorites. 

Jacob Pyeatt understands the importance of running solo

Running is a sport where most success earned comes from the individual athlete. Despite having coaches and teammates, the individual still has to run for themselves and the team’s success can’t cushion the score. 

Arkansas State Men’s Indoor Track and Field school record holder, Jacob Pyeatt, holds that to be true. Pyeatt holds three school records for A-State and has been awarded multiple times in conference. 

The senior from Mountain Home, Arkansas competed in the 5,000 meter run at the Sharon Colyear-Danville Season Opener in Boston, Massachusetts. Pyeatt ran a scorching 14:14.63 5k to break his school record which was 14:15.50 at the 8th Annual Indoor Gorilla Classic at Pittsburg State. 

At the Boston meet, Jacob placed 138th overall, which might not be impressive at first glance; however, the meet was so big they had eight total heats of 15 runners minimum in each heat.

This sport allowed Pyeatt to see major U.S. states and cities. He has had races in Seattle, Boston, California, Nashville, and College Station, Texas.

“Running for A-State has been an absolute blast,” Pyeatt said.

His favorite trip was his most recent one to Boston.

 “Boston was one of the coolest cities I’ve been to,” Pyeatt said. “It is really old and historic, the city is older than our nation.”

Pyeatt said a close second was California.  The team was there for five days. 

“I forgot I was here for a business trip, it was so beautiful,” he said. 

Pyeatt even ran a school record in the 10k meter race with 29:11.66. 

Meet Noah McMurtrey, Ironman  

Noah McMurtey, a miler, steeplechaser and cross country runner for Arkansas State University has to take iron seriously to not hinder his performance. 

According to an article by Runners Connect, about 56% of joggers and competitive runners suffer from an iron deficiency due to increased foot demand, footstrike hemolysis and increased sweat. Iron deficiency can affect performance, an issue for a D-1 athlete. 

This was an obstacle known too well by the A-State junior out of Bentonville, Arkansas. McMurtey is in his third year of college, but second at A-State. He transferred from Adams State in Alamosa, Colorado.

Iron deficiency can show minimal symptoms like experiencing fatigue and feeling weak, symptoms easy to confuse with just being an athlete. 

He first noticed it in high school.

“At first I thought it was just overtraining,” McMurtrey said. 

McMurtey felt constant fatigue and his body couldn’t recover properly. The first time he had to increase his iron levels required two IV iron drips.

His levels still took two months to return to normal, but he felt the complete opposite as before. He set a personal record in the 5k by 40 seconds that same year.

McMurtey will have to take an iron supplement and monitor his levels for life. 

McMurtey shared his experiences of having to go through a struggling season. 

“It was incredibly difficult, especially because I love running and respect it,” he said.

 Through this, McMurtey refined himself. “I had to learn to take my identity out of running and focus on other areas in life,” he said.

Jacob Lawrence and NIL

The NCAA is entering a new age with huge name, image and likeness (NIL) deals and its potential negative effects. 

The transfer portal has now turned into a professional free agency type entity. Students can pack up everything they have and go to a new school if their previous one does not fit them the best. 

Jacob Lawrence, who is from the Bay Area in California, is one of those athletes who has bounced around from school to school.

Lawrence found success in running during his high school years in California. Lawrence has transferred schools a total of three times. He first competed for Chabot College, a community college in Hayward, California. 

His next turn was for Portland State University for a year. Realizing it wasn’t a good fit, he transferred to Washington State University. At WSU he had some success and made some memories but it ultimately again was not a good fit.

Lawrence eventually chose Arkansas State. 

“I raced some of their guys at an indoor meet in Washington, so I knew the program was good”. Jacob admits there was a “big culture shock” when moving from the West Coast to the South Eastern region of the U.S. The overall transfer process has been easy for Lawrence. 

When asked about the negative views on multiple transfers, Jacob replied “people do

not have the right to judge people who transfer multiple times”. To him, doing what you think is best for you will put you in the best place for success

Formatted and contributed by Rebecca Robinson | Sports Editor

Categories: Sports