JAMESTOWN — When Dawson Sedivic first arrived at the University of Jamestown, he planned on playing as a defensive lineman for the football program and being a track-and-field athlete, but an injury before his sophomore year forced him to give up football and concentrate full-time on throwing.
“I got injured in my summer training before last year so I couldn’t do football without having a foot surgery so I just decided to throw full time,” Sedivic said.
The former Mayville-Portland-Clifford-Galesburg athlete had a successful high school career in both sports as he currently sits fourth all-time in school history for the shot put, second for the discus and 16th for the javelin. On the football field, he made the All-Region team during his senior season.
Sedivic has not been throwing for very long though as he was forced to miss his freshman year due to a broken leg and his senior year due to the Coronavirus pandemic.
“I had little expertise training in high school, it was a little small-town high school so I didn’t have a full-time coach,” Sedivic said. “His name was Bill Bohnsack, he had 10 events he was coaching. So, the first year was trying to get the technique down and trying to get a little more comfortable in my sport. The second year I had to just use the technique I was given but still really lack the confidence at these bigger meets where you go against these (Division I) kids and you feel intimated. This year is more of you just gotta be a competitor and be confident in what you’re doing.”
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Through four indoor meets this year, Sedivic has already qualified for the national championships thanks to a personal record weight throw of 16.95 meters against Northern State University (S.D.) on Jan. 14.
“Coach (Kathryn) Lemm has coached me really well,” Sedivic said. “She was really patient my first two years where I was mediocre at the weight throw and she let me thrive this current year. I guess the competition on the team because Jorden Morales is also a really good weight thrower, he’s only about a meter behind me. ... This is also my first year having an offseason because I’ve been in football for the first two years here but now I had an offseason to train so that helped.”
Despite having success in the indoor season, Sedivic said he prefers throwing outdoors.
“Indoor is overall less fun than outdoor,” Sedivic said. “I think that’s the overall notion for it, weight throw is a lot less fun than hammer and not being able to do discus of course. I guess it’s completely different things, guys just think of them as different atmospheres in their entirety.”
Sedivic said his favorite part of the sport is the relationships he has with his fellow throwers and that he has grown to find the sport relaxing.
During his career, Sedivic has thrown the shot put, hammer, discus and weight. His personal bests are 12.90 meters for shot put, 42.20 meters for the hammer and 40.88 meters for discus.
“For the weight and hammer, they’re the same foot movement, the same orbit but you just gotta completely throw out your cues of two different throws because if you try to mix them you’re just going to go flying one way or the other,” Sedivic said. “Discus, I just view it as a refreshing therapeutic throw I do twice a week to get my mind off of heel-toe, heel-toe from the hammer throw.”
Heading into the season, Sedivic said his only goals were to continue to improve but as he has seen success he now wants to etch his name into history.
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“I came ahead and the hammer is by far my best one and the weight throw is just a means to get to hammer outdoor,” Sedivic said. “But as the year went on my weight throw got pretty close to the school record so that’s changed my goals. I want to get the school record this year. It was first qualify for nationals and now it’s get the school record which I’m 5 centimeters away from.”
The current weight throw record is held by former Jimmie Garrett Tenney who set the school record in 2014 with a throw of 17.00 meters.
Despite Sedivic throwing under three different head coaches in his three years, Lemm has remained which he said has made the adjustment minimal. Sedivic said the biggest difference between head coaches is which meets the teams go to.
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