By River Mitchell
@rivermitchell27
Track and field athlete Katherine DeFosse has been competing in the sport since she was in eighth grade. DeFosse, originally a soccer player, gathered attention from various people due to the sheer speed they saw from her on the field.
On Jan. 20 during her meet at Springfield as a part of the Massasoit Classic, DeFosse put that speed to good use. As a first-year student, she broke the school’s previous record of 9.22 seconds in the 60 meter hurdles with a time of 9.04 seconds in her preliminary heat.
“When my [time of] 9.04 came up, emotions hit me immediately,” DeFosse said. “I was jumping up and down at the finish line [and] I knew right there that I did [it]. My whole team was screaming at the finish line and everyone was there to congratulate me.”
Coming into the start of the season, DeFosse was already close to breaking the school’s record in the 60 meter. DeFosse got a 9.29 in the preliminary round in the Springfield College season opener at home, and had a time of 9.26 seconds in the Tufts Jumbo Invitational.
“The first meet that we had, it was on my mind that I was close to the school record,” DeFosse said. “The first meet coming in I ran and I was obviously discouraged that I didn’t break it.”
Flash forward to the Tufts Jumbo Invitational, DeFosse had her sights set on breaking it while at the meet coming back from break. When she wasn’t able to snag the hardware on the road, DeFosse leaned on her coaches for words of encouragement and her thoughts immediately shifted to getting the record at home.
“Coming into the Tufts meet I wanted to break it there, but I didn’t and I was really discouraged,” DeFosse said. “I ended up talking to my coaches and they talked me through [it] like ‘You have time, you’re only a freshman, you have four years to do this.’”
“I was in my head the whole week about [being home thinking], ‘We’re home, it would be amazing to do this at home.’”
Having her name in the Springfield College record book wouldn’t be an easy task at all, and would not come smoothly either. After a rough practice the Friday before the meet, DeFosse felt that she was in her head too much. Turning to her coach again, he told her to do something that would evidently assist her in breaking the school’s record.
“I told my coach I’m in my head and I’m overthinking,” DeFosse said. “He was like, ‘Give me a dad joke tomorrow morning and before you run I’ll be asking you what your dad joke is on the line.’”
This gave DeFosse another thing to think about the night before the meet, which helped take her mind off of the record which was looming over her head for quite some time.
“It wasn’t even on my mind at that meet which is something that was weird to me because the past two meets, it was,” DeFosse said. “I got in my box and I just told myself [to] relax. I took a deep breath and I felt like I was flying. Having that dad joke in my head [helped] getting my mind off everything else.”
Photo courtesy of Springfield Athletics