I wasn’t looking for story material when I registered for the May 19 to 22, 2016 Minnesota Senior Games in St. Cloud. But I found it.
Now four years a cancer survivor in follow-up treatment, I’ve got lots of folks looking after and guiding me. One is Dawn Stevens, Care Coordinator on the staff of Dr. Joe Blonski. She manages my CentraCare MyChart, which gets updated a couple times each year. MyChart lists personal goals.
Dawn keeps me focused on goals. That’s where Senior Games enters in. But I was timid. I entered one event – the javelin throw.
I had some success throwing the javelin in college, so I selected that event. I thought that with a history of success throwing in competition with age-mates in college, perhaps I’d be successful now – albeit 60 years later.
Well, I won the bronze medal (third place) in the javelin for men age 75 to 79, but that’s not the story. The incredible story is that of Sherwood Sagedahl, a 77 year-old retired coach from Fairmont, Minn., who entered eight track and field events.
But get this! Sagedahl not only entered eight events, he won eight events.
I was not aware of his prodigious accomplishment at the time, but was speechless in looking through the results two weeks after the games, when they were finally posted. Eight events entered, eight events won. Wow!
Senior Games is a huge, four-day production of events scattered over various venues. Competition was held in archery, badminton, basketball, billiards, bowling, cribbage, cycling, disc golf, golf, horseshoes, pickleball, race walk, racquetball, 5K road run, 10K road run, shuffleboard, softball, swimming, table tennis, tennis, track and field, and volleyball.
The facilities for track and field were located in Sauk Rapids at the Rice Middle School campus.
The eight events Sagedahl entered and won were: 50-meter dash, 100-meter dash, 200-meter dash, 400-meter run, 800- meter run, 1,500-meter run; the long jump and the javelin.
For comparison, in 1950s track, we dealt with inches, feet, and yards. In present metric measure, 100 meters is about 110 yards (or, a football field plus one end zone); 200 meters is roughly 220 yards; 800 meters is about half a mile; and 1,500 meters is close to a mile run. To run these in competition is a strenuous, daunting task, especially in just one day.
Although I talked briefly with Sagedahl at the improvised javelin site, I left the meet without knowing what he had done that day, or what he had previously done. Two weeks later I saw the posted results on the Minnesota Senior Games website.
Discovering a senior athlete with eight first place performances, including age 75 to 79 men’s javelin that I had entered, definitely piqued my interest. Who was this guy?
My cheering section consisted of my wife Shirley, my son-in-law Randy, and my daughter Debra. They remembered him as being especially fit and friendly. They had no idea he performed like a one-man team.
I walked with him a short distance on one of my trips to and from the javelin site, and we swapped notes on where we purchased our javelins. And, I do recall that he asked if this year was my first in the Senior Games. That was about it.
In doing an Internet search, I learned that Sagedahl was a four-sport athlete at a small Minnesota high school, and that he had played basketball for one year and baseball for two years while a student at Moorhead State University in the early 1960s.
Sagedahl taught and coached at Kimball in 1964-65, then completed a high school counseling program at St. Cloud State in 1967. He was hired by Fairmont High School, where he worked for over 20 years.
Sagedahl was training and started running in road races at age 60, and also started competing in senior games. He qualified first for the National Senior Games in 2005, and has run in the USA Master National Meets in several different states.
But catch this: Sagedahl set the Masters Outdoor Championship world record for the pentathlon at Benedictine University in Lisle, Illinois, in 2012 at age 73. The pentathlon consists of five events – the long jump, the javelin, the 200 meter dash, the discus throw, and the 1,500 meter run. His point total was 3,806.
What Sagedahl has done, incidentally, is cause me to broaden my goals. For next year, my MyChart statement will include Senior Games – four events. Nurse Dawn will be happy, but I will need to do much more serious training than I did this year.
For the 2017 Minnesota Senior Games, to be held in Mankato, I move into the age 80 to 84 class, and I’ll be the new kid on the block. Sagedahl will be 78, but I’m sure I’ll see him there, and this time I’ll make a point of talking with him.
Sherwood Sagedahl is quite an inspiration. He’s also a world record holder.
Clayton Diskerud, Buffalo, formerly of Lake Augusta, is an emeritus professor of social science and criminal justice (for which he was program director.) He has taught at the University of Minnesota and Carthage College in Kenosha, Wisconsin. He is a regular contributor to the Advocate.