Jackson Schepp joined the North Dakota State men’s and women’s track & field programs in August 2022 as the assistant coach for multievents and pole vault.
Schepp came to NDSU after coaching at the University of St. Thomas in the 2021-22 season, guiding UST sophomore Nate Raddatz to the Summit League title in the decathlon.
Schepp coached the Tommies to a 1-3-8 finish in the decathlon at their first Summit League Outdoor Championships in 2022, with all three athletes being underclassmen. Prior to his tenure at St. Thomas, Schepp served as a volunteer assistant coach at Nebraska for the multi-events and pole vault.
“We are excited to have Jackson as part of the Bison Family and are looking forward to his leadership of our combined events and pole vault,” Keller said. “In his young coaching career, he has done an excellent job of developing his athletes to reach their potential.”
Schepp was an assistant coach at the University of Mary from 2017-19 working with the Marauders’ multis, high jump and pole vault, coaching multiple all-conference athletes, two conference champions and four All-Americans.
Schepp competed in track & field at Concordia-Moorhead from 2013-17, where he was a two-time national qualifier (2017 indoor heptathlon, 2017 outdoor decathlon) and a two-time Academic All-American. He earned three MIAC individual conference titles, 13 MIAC all-conference honors, and holds the Cobbers’ school record in the heptathlon. Schepp was also crowned Concordia College Athlete of the Year for his achievements in competition and leadership within the community.
A native of Buffalo, Minn., Schepp earned a bachelor’s degree in exercise science from Concordia-Moorhead in 2017 and a master’s degree in kinesiology from the University of Mary in 2019.
-From GoBison.com
Q&A
Q: You just got hired back in August, did you always want to coach?
A: Kind of, yeah. I knew I wanted to coach and potentially teach as well. Coaching at the college level kind of just fell in my lap. I was at a track meet and a Concordia alumni who was coaching asked me what I was doing. And I didn’t know what I was going to do after graduation and they said they had a GA spot open at the University of Mary and told me I should apply and I did.
Q: How much knowledge of the sport did you have by the time you were done competing, or have picked up since then?
A: I definitely had great mentorship at Concordia that gave me a good head start. That’s really in any profession, you don’t really know what you don’t know until you get into it. Over the years, I’ve picked up things along the way from a lot of different people and through trial and error. You just got to learn as you go.
Q: What has it been like working here? I have to imagine the resources available are pretty incredible.
A: Yeah, they’re pretty different. It’s outstanding. It makes coming to work super fun. It’s a high level atmosphere and you have a lot of resources at your disposal. There aren’t a lot of hurdles to jump over besides the actual hurdles. It’s like a dream come true. It’s so fun to be able to come in here and work every day.
Q: Who from your group do you see making a big impact this year?
A: We have a really young crew. For the men, Zach McGlynn is our returning scorer. He has made a lot of progress this fall. We have two incoming freshmen in the vault crew that came in pretty highly ranked in the region, Jared White and Julia Gherardi. I think their contributions will be pretty impactful early in their careers which is exciting. On the women’s side of the multis, we have Nell Graham and Angel Pratt coming back and we are expecting big things out of both of them.
Q: How do you go about balancing training in strong areas versus improving maybe weaker events for multis? Do you have to vary it by the athlete?
A: That’s the name of the game when it comes to multis. We’re pretty fortunate right now that our people are kind of all skilled in the same areas. It makes it easy on my part to kind of adjust training as a collective. But there are times where, you know, some guys need a little more work in certain events than others and we will separate and individualize as needed. The multis are basically just a big juggling act. Honestly, it ebbs and flows. Some months, we’ll focus more on strengths, and in other months, we will focus more on the weaknesses. Sometimes it’s more of a balanced approach to just kind of what we need at the moment.
Q: What do you look for when recruiting a multi athlete?
A: Speed and jumping ability are king in the multis. It’s also nice to see wellrounded athletes—someone who plays multiple sports and excels in multiple sports. I think every one of our multis was a two if not three-sport athletes. And then just someone who really likes and enjoys and loves the sport of track and field. You kind of have to be a track junkie to compete in this area and there are so many different things you have to learn. You also have to be willing to suck for a long time before you actually get good at anything. You have to have the tenacity and the mindset to be okay with failure over and over and over and over and over again while you chase one glimpse of success. It takes a special person to kind of be able to do that. But when you find those kids, they’re just the most fun to work with.
I would even say the same thing for the pole vault as well. It’s so technical by itself and comes with a lot of continual failure over and over again and you have to do that without losing enthusiasm for the sport.
