Feature by Craig Morgan
TEMPE, Ariz. -- The Ewens just call it "the barn," but Bruce Ewen admits it is more of a multi-purpose center. The cold-storage area houses toys for a family that loves to snowmobile, airboat, hunt, fish and cycle near its home in St. Francis, Minnesota. The heated half serves as Bruce's workshop, and a weight room for him, his wife, Kristi, and their daughters, Alicia and Maggie.
When Maggie started showing prowess in the throwing events of track and field as a kid, the barn assumed an added function.
"In this state, you've got to have somewhere warm to go train," Bruce said, chuckling.
So Bruce built a ring, then took the net off the old family trampoline and hung it from the ceiling to give Maggie something in which to throw.
"All winter, when it was cold and snowy, we would just go up to the barn," Maggie said. "We still use it when I go home in the winter."
These are the building blocks from which an NCAA champion was born.
Ewen was named the 2017 Outdoor Women's National Field Athlete of the Year by the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association on Wednesday, becoming the first Sun Devil female to win the award since Jacquelyn Johnson in 2008, and the first ASU thrower since Ryan Whiting in 2010.
She amassed a meet-high 21 points at the NCAA Outdoor Championships in Eugene, Oregon with an NCAA title in the hammer throw, a second-place finish in the discus, and a sixth-place finish in the shot put. Her winning hammer throw of 73.32m (240-7) broke the 10-year-old NCAA record.
It was the high point of a career that is still on the rise, but what made it all the more gratifying for the redshirt junior is that she got to share it with her parents, who made the trip to Eugene, and who made everything possible at every stop along the way.
"The first thing I've always done after every track meet is call my parents and tell them 'here's how I did, yay!" Ewen said, laughing. "I always want to share everything with them so I was happy they could share that moment with me."
Genetics have undoubtedly played a role in Ewen's success. Bruce was an All-American thrower at Illinois State who competed at the Olympic Trials in 1988. Kristi was a standout volleyball player at Ohio State. But the Ewens never pressured their girls into athletics; never regaled them with stories of their own exploits. That laissez faire approach played just as big a role.
"They never even knew that we were DI athletes, not until they asked us," Kristi said. "We always looked at it as this was their gig. We'll jump on if you want us to be part of that. It's great just to ride along on your kids' coattails. I'm not lying to you."
Maggie played volleyball and softball growing up, but there came a point when Kristi told her it was best to choose. Both parents were quietly ecstatic when Maggie chose track and field, where as a sixth grader she had thrown the discus 98 feet.
"We went to a varsity tack meet and she went up to the track coach as a seventh grader and said 'coach I would have taken sixth place here today,'" Bruce said. "He kind of just smiled at this seventh grader, but he told me afterward, 'holy cow! She really would have been in sixth place.' By eighth grade, they brought her up to throw for varsity and it just rolled from there."
It was Bruce who told Maggie to buy in from the start when ASU switched throwing coaches this season from David Dumble to Brian Blutreich, ushering in a dramatic change in style and approach. Yet neither parent would bat an eye if Ewen decided to walk away from a sport she is starting to dominate.
"They still tell me, 'if you want to quit, if you don't like it, go for it,'" Maggie said. "'We'll support you through anything you want to do.'"
Ewen has no intention of quitting, but as she prepares for the USA Track and Field Outdoor Championships from June 22-25 at Sacramento State, with a chance to qualify for the World Championships on the line, another reminder is guiding her daily training.
"That one day it's all going to end," Bruce said. "I told her 'you will reach the point where your career is going to be over, so every day you let pass without embracing it is one day you'll never get back.'"
With an offseason of training with Blutreich upcoming to hone her craft, with her senior season approaching, and with an Olympic dream still dangling in the distant future, Ewen is all in.
"I'm very much an in-the-moment and what-comes-next kind of person," she said. "I think there will be big things next year after what this year has already brought.
"Throwing is just a rep battle. We have so many of Dumble's reps so deeply instilled in us and we've only had nine months of what Blue wants, so with a whole other offseason of training before we compete again, I'm really looking forward to getting higher in my reps and taking off even more."
TEMPE, Ariz. -- The Ewens just call it "the barn," but Bruce Ewen admits it is more of a multi-purpose center. The cold-storage area houses toys for a family that loves to snowmobile, airboat, hunt, fish and cycle near its home in St. Francis, Minnesota. The heated half serves as Bruce's workshop, and a weight room for him, his wife, Kristi, and their daughters, Alicia and Maggie.
When Maggie started showing prowess in the throwing events of track and field as a kid, the barn assumed an added function.
"In this state, you've got to have somewhere warm to go train," Bruce said, chuckling.
So Bruce built a ring, then took the net off the old family trampoline and hung it from the ceiling to give Maggie something in which to throw.
"All winter, when it was cold and snowy, we would just go up to the barn," Maggie said. "We still use it when I go home in the winter."
These are the building blocks from which an NCAA champion was born.
Ewen was named the 2017 Outdoor Women's National Field Athlete of the Year by the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association on Wednesday, becoming the first Sun Devil female to win the award since Jacquelyn Johnson in 2008, and the first ASU thrower since Ryan Whiting in 2010.
She amassed a meet-high 21 points at the NCAA Outdoor Championships in Eugene, Oregon with an NCAA title in the hammer throw, a second-place finish in the discus, and a sixth-place finish in the shot put. Her winning hammer throw of 73.32m (240-7) broke the 10-year-old NCAA record.
It was the high point of a career that is still on the rise, but what made it all the more gratifying for the redshirt junior is that she got to share it with her parents, who made the trip to Eugene, and who made everything possible at every stop along the way.
"The first thing I've always done after every track meet is call my parents and tell them 'here's how I did, yay!" Ewen said, laughing. "I always want to share everything with them so I was happy they could share that moment with me."
Genetics have undoubtedly played a role in Ewen's success. Bruce was an All-American thrower at Illinois State who competed at the Olympic Trials in 1988. Kristi was a standout volleyball player at Ohio State. But the Ewens never pressured their girls into athletics; never regaled them with stories of their own exploits. That laissez faire approach played just as big a role.
"They never even knew that we were DI athletes, not until they asked us," Kristi said. "We always looked at it as this was their gig. We'll jump on if you want us to be part of that. It's great just to ride along on your kids' coattails. I'm not lying to you."
Maggie played volleyball and softball growing up, but there came a point when Kristi told her it was best to choose. Both parents were quietly ecstatic when Maggie chose track and field, where as a sixth grader she had thrown the discus 98 feet.
"We went to a varsity tack meet and she went up to the track coach as a seventh grader and said 'coach I would have taken sixth place here today,'" Bruce said. "He kind of just smiled at this seventh grader, but he told me afterward, 'holy cow! She really would have been in sixth place.' By eighth grade, they brought her up to throw for varsity and it just rolled from there."
It was Bruce who told Maggie to buy in from the start when ASU switched throwing coaches this season from David Dumble to Brian Blutreich, ushering in a dramatic change in style and approach. Yet neither parent would bat an eye if Ewen decided to walk away from a sport she is starting to dominate.
"They still tell me, 'if you want to quit, if you don't like it, go for it,'" Maggie said. "'We'll support you through anything you want to do.'"
Ewen has no intention of quitting, but as she prepares for the USA Track and Field Outdoor Championships from June 22-25 at Sacramento State, with a chance to qualify for the World Championships on the line, another reminder is guiding her daily training.
"That one day it's all going to end," Bruce said. "I told her 'you will reach the point where your career is going to be over, so every day you let pass without embracing it is one day you'll never get back.'"
With an offseason of training with Blutreich upcoming to hone her craft, with her senior season approaching, and with an Olympic dream still dangling in the distant future, Ewen is all in.
"I'm very much an in-the-moment and what-comes-next kind of person," she said. "I think there will be big things next year after what this year has already brought.
"Throwing is just a rep battle. We have so many of Dumble's reps so deeply instilled in us and we've only had nine months of what Blue wants, so with a whole other offseason of training before we compete again, I'm really looking forward to getting higher in my reps and taking off even more."