Nearing the end of his sophomore year and second track and field season, Jonathan DeAguiar continues to work towards leaving his mark at Keene State College.
DeAguiar recently placed fourth at the Penman Relays, Silfen Invitationals at Connecticut College in New London, Conn. on Saturday, April 13. DeAguiar was able to run the 200-meter race in 23 seconds flat.
The 20-year-old came to KSC with little intention to join the track and field team, he said. However, talks with Head Coach Dan Roark changed DeAguiar’s mind.
“When I came to college, I wasn’t really looking for track because I wasn’t serious about it [track and field],” DeAguiar said sitting at a table outside the student center.
Currently, DeAguiar is a sprinter for the team in both indoor and outdoor track and field. He also runs in relay races, like the 400-meter relay.
The Fall River, Mass. native originally started to run in track and field in middle school to help stay in shape for soccer season. He said he kept up with track and field all through high school but did not take it as seriously as he does now. Now, track and field is at the forefront of his mind, and while he still plays soccer for fun, it is not his main sport.
After running all throughout high school and making that transition to run at the collegiate level, DeAguiar said it made him focus on improving his form.
While running in high school, he said he never used a starting block before, so joining the college team was something he had to adjust to and learn how to use. DeAguiar said sprinting at the collegiate level taught him to take the sport and himself more seriously. He learned a lot of what he was doing in high school was not necessarily the correct way, but with a little bit of coaching, he said he has improved a lot.
“I don’t think I would have improved as much if I didn’t start taking it more serious and have actual coaching,” DeAguiar said.
Sophomore Max Smith has known DeAguiar since day one on the team.
Smith said DeAguiar might be quiet but encourages Smith to work harder and improve himself as well.
“That just he’s like more of a lead by example like he’s always working hard, like no matter what he’s going to do his thing. Going to be working hard the whole time,” Smith said of DeAguiar.
With two more years left to go in his college career, he said so far being at a meet in January at Boston University competing against bigger and more elite teams has been the highlight thus far. The meet was early on in the indoor track and field season.
Despite his run times at the meet not being the best, he said “I was just happy to be there and it was a really eye-opening experience.”
At that meet, DeAguiar competed against schools like Duke University and Texas A&M University.
“It really got me motivated because since I didn’t do so well, it really like pushed me to just start getting better,” DeAguiar said.
However, at the tail end of the season, DeAguiar faced one of the first mishaps of his college career. During the Little East Conference meet, the 4×200 team did not finish after he took off too early for the handoff..
“After that relay where I put all of the blame on myself … I had everyone around me to support me and they pushed [me],” DeAguiar said. “They picked me up and they told me to just keep on going.”
Even though track and field is an individual sport, DeAguiar said there is a lot of comradery on the team. He said everyone is always there to support each other in their races and to cheer everyone on.
Despite the team being so large across men’s and women’s, he said everyone knows one another and goes to each other’s events even if they don’t know a single thing about that particular one.
Smith said the connection between the team leaves the track and into each other’s personal lives.
“I think that’s something that’s great about our team is that we get along just at practice and during you know like events for track, but that also off the track like in our downtime and our free time,” Smith said. “We like to hang out, play video games, watch movies, all that stuff.”
At the end of the day, DeAguiar said because of its individuality, he does not care about what other people do, he just gets to run.
“No matter what you do, you’re going to feel good about it, because that’s how I feel,” he said. “I don’t care about what other people are running, what I place. I just care about how I do in general and just just trying to be a good person while I do it.”
Head Coach Dan Roark was not available for comment by publication deadline.
Tim Bruns can be contacted at
tbruns@kscequinox.com
