- Slug: Sports-ASU thrower, 700 words
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By OMAR SOUSSI
Cronkite News
TEMPE — Since the start of her Arizona State career, senior thrower Maggie Ewen has consistently set new benchmarks while breaking personal records.
Lately, she’s been breaking ASU and NCAA records as well.
In the first week of the 2018 season, Ewen broke the ASU indoor shot put record with a throw of 18.44 meters. The following week, Ewen broke it once again, throwing 18.67 meters and moving up from ninth in NCAA history to fifth all-time. Yet regardless of her success, regardless of the records she has set, Ewen has done her best to remain humble and said she doesn’t “really feel the need to brag.”
“People will see the record when I break the record,” Ewen said. “I don’t need to tell everyone about it. They’ll find out on their own and in their own way.”
Breaking records has given her more confidence when she throws.
“To be able to have broken those records and be officially the best indoor shot putter to ever come through ASU, it’s that extra little confidence that helps me throw farther in the future,” Ewen said.
With much of her family excelling at sports, it isn’t much of a shock that Ewen joined their ranks. Her father, Bruce Ewen, was an All-American thrower at Illinois State who also competed in the Olympic Trial during 1988, while both her mother, Kristi, and her sister, Alicia, competed in college volleyball at Ohio State and University of Mary, respectively. Maggie said she started competing in sports at a young age and with this support group around her, they prepared her for the next level of competition.
“Their experiences, what they went through in college, they really helped me to prepare for what was coming … to work through all those differences that come from high school to college,” Ewen said.
During her time within the ASU throwing program, Ewen has grown considerably, as her stats show, getting better and better as the years pass.
“I think a lot of it has been character-building and just that overall confidence,” Ewen said. “Just building up the reps, building up the base and now finally really starting to see the results and that’s been awesome.”
Another big reason for her success, she said, is her throwing coach who came in last season, Brian Blutreich. After a season with Ewen, he said their relationship has improved in year two with the two of them getting to know each other more.
“There’s a lot more communication, a lot better communication, just last year was … figuring each other out, figuring out how each other works like mentally and all that kind of stuff,” Ewen said. “And this year, everything has been a lot smoother, a lot more just easier to understand, easy to pick up and easy to make differences.”
With the records she has broken, including the collegiate hammer throw mark, and winning the NCAA championship for hammer throw in 2017, Ewen has become one of the best, if not the best, throwers to come out of the program. She was a finalist for The Bowerman award last year, which is given to the top male and female track athlete in the NCAA, and is on the preseason watchlist for it this year. Blutreich agrees the Minnesota native isn’t one to talk but prefers to let her actions speak for her.
“She leads more by example,” Blutreich said. “I think when people see her training and how hard she works, on and off the track, she’s just a great young lady and does things the way things should be done … in life, in general.”
Blutreich also said that Ewen’s motivation is simple: She wants to be as good as she can be and try to “win the day” each day.
For Ewen, the Olympics are a real possibility although that isn’t on her mind. She is focused on her final semester at ASU.
“I really just want to see, kind of the same thing, how far I can take it, how big of a mark I can leave,” she said. “I’m really really looking forward already to NCAA nationals and seeing what I can do.”
