North Carolina State University Athletics
PEELER: Bethea Jumps at Her Opportunies
4/24/2009 12:00:00 AM | Track
BY TIM PEELER
RALEIGH, N.C. When NC State senior Mattie Bethea is queen of track and gets to choose the events of the indoor pentathlon or the outdoor heptathlon, she’s going to do away with the 800-meter run and replace it with the triple jump.
She doesn’t even care that she hasn’t competed in the triple since high school.
She just dislikes the 800 that much. But, so far, no one has asked her to make fundamental adjustments to the multi-sport events.
To be fair, Mathea never expected to compete in the middle-distance race. She came to NC State from Winston-Salem’s Mt. Tabor High School as a high jumper and long jumper, skills she developed while playing recreational, middle school and high school basketball. In fact, she thought she was going to go to college to play basketball, but decided she would rather compete in track after winning the 2004 North Carolina High School Association high jump title.
After red-shirting the 2007 outdoor season, she came back as a multi-events specialist, earning All-ACC honors in the pentathlon during the 2009 indoor season and finishing fourth in the heptathlon in the 2009 outdoor season.
And, she believes, those finishes could have been better if it weren’t for the 800. It’s an event that she admittedly muddles through.
“It’s a killer for me,” Bethea said. “It is coming along slowly, but surely. I basically just have to go out there and say It’s three minutes of my life,’ and run as fast as I can.”
But, like the shot put and the hurdles, running the 800 is something she had never done in competition until she arrived at NC State. So to become one of the best multiple event performers in school history is quite an accomplishment.
Plus, the double-major in Sociology and Psychology likes the challenge of doing something new.
“I think it is good on my character,” said Bethea, who has been a member of the ACC Academic Honor Roll in four of her five years at NC State. “You know how you get complacent sometimes, and want to go the easy route. It’s easy to get lazy. I am glad that I chose to stick with the tough route. It is paying off.”
Friday, Bethea and many of her Wolfpack teammates are participating in the renown Penn Relays in Philadelphia, one of track and field’s premier amateur events. She’s not competing in the heptathlon, just the high jump, where she continues to excel.
She owns the second-best mark in school history, a jump of 5-11 feet. She also owns the fifth-best mark in the long jump, with a mark of 19- 5 feet.
Bethea first made the track team in middle school, but had to give it up while concentrating on her basketball skills. She rejoined the track team as a high school junior and immediately finished fourth in the state meet in both the long jump and the high jump.
As a senior, she was the runner up in the long jump and the state champion in the high jump. So she decided to participate in track in college, even though she was still second-guessing that decision two years into her college career.
“But I realize now that I made the right decision,” Bethea said.
As her athletic career winds down, Bethea knows she has more decision ahead of her, as she works for her ultimate professional goal of becoming a school counselor. With the tough job market now facing college seniors, she is already filling out her applications for graduate school.
“I don’t think I want to get into the market for a job right now,” Bethea said. “So I think I will hop onto graduate school.”
Besides, it can’t be any more difficult than running the 800.
You may contact Tim Peeler at tim_peeler@ncsu.edu.
