http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/2010/04/15/25869/
Stefan is now at Princeton.
Stefan is now at Princeton.
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Stefan Schwab
- Thread starter StarWars
- Start date
The link doesn't work, but I believe that's an article about Sebastian Steffen, another German sprinter not quite as good as Stefan Schwab. Here's a cut and paste of the article:
It's rare to find an athlete who has competed on a national team and
could possibly qualify for the 2012 Summer Olympics. It's even rarer
when the athlete shrugs his shoulders, laughs and says, "It's not that
cool."Â
Yet freshman Sebastian Steffen of the men's track and field
team fits that rare category. Steffen was part of the German B national
team in 2008 after finishing fifth in the 200m at the German men's
championships. When he was 16, Steffen finished second in the 400m at
the junior indoor German championships.
"He is possibly one of
the greatest athletes on campus, but upon meeting him you would never
guess because of the great humility he demonstrates,"Â said freshman John
Hutton, Steffen's roommate.
Steffen started track in fourth grade
when a German coach saw him run at an elementary school event.
"He
thought, ‘Hey, he looks pretty good,' [and asked] ‘You want to join the
track team?' "Â Steffen remembered.
Despite coming to campus as an
international student, the freshman found the transition onto the
Princeton team easy.
"I'm already a pretty old freshman, I guess,
because in Germany we have 13 years of school and after that I had to
serve for a year in civil service,"Â Steffen said.
"So I'm already
two years older than everyone else â€" senile," he joked.
After
being given a choice between civil and military service â€" where,
according to Steffen, "all you do is sit in front of buildings and do
nothing" Ã¢â‚¬" he chose civil service.
"I worked in a hospital in a
dialysis station,"Â Steffen said. "That was intense. That's where people
with malfunctioning kidneys come. I ordered supplies, I gave them their
insulin â€" there were a lot of diabetes patients â€" I prepared breakfast
for them, and fed them if they didn't have arms or legs anymore."Â
Steffen's
freshman indoor track season derailed unexpectedly due to an intramural
volleyball accident â€" something the track team still teases him for.
"It
was so dumb,"Â Steffen said. "I played intramural volleyball just for
fun. I jumped up for a block and came down and stepped on the other
guy's foot and sprained my ankle really, really badly. What kind of
sucks is that my right foot is still not as flexible as my other one so
it still bothers me a little bit when I'm running curves."Â
Since
Steffen's track team in Germany was small, he never genuinely got to
experience real team spirit until he came to Princeton.
"It's
really fun, the people are really nice, and it's just a good community â€"
everyone's supporting each other,"Â Steffen said. "They only make fun of
my accent and, I don't know, some German stereotypes or something"Â.
Steffen
has brought some aspects of his European track experience to Princeton.
"I
think that at European track meets, fans use a lot of horns and other
noisemakers,"Â junior co-captain Mike Eddy said. "Typically they don't do
that at collegiate meets in the U.S. Well, this winter Sebastian
single-handedly managed to get horns banned at the Ivy League indoor
track championships. He brought so many different horns and noisemakers
that we had the meet announcer repeatedly declaring that ‘Horns are
prohibited at the Ivy League championship.' Needless to say, we can no
longer use horns at track meets."Â
Steffen has also started his own
traditions on the team.
"For instance, I don't shave on the day
before a track meet. I don't know, I just don't do it,"Â Steffen said.
"There's a German saying that's like, ‘If you don't shave, you don't
lose.' "Â
He also collects all the safety pins used to attach his
race numbers at track meets on a long chain.
"I also took a couple
other people's, [so now I] have like 30,"Â Steffen said.
With much
of his collegiate career still ahead, the sprinter has a long list of
athletic goals, including breaking the Princeton 200m record, advancing
to the NCAA championships, reaching the 2012 Summer Olympics in London
and, most of all, making his coach happy.
"[To make the Olympics],
I have to run my [personal record] pretty much,"Â Steffen said. "I think
that's possible, though. I'm older now [and] I practice a lot more
now."Â
The "A"Â qualifying standard for the 200m at the 2009 world
track championships was 20.59 seconds, just a hair faster than Steffen's
best time.
"My PR is 20.89, which is three-tenths off, so if the
standard doesn't change I hope I can make it,"Â he said. "That's sort of
like the big goal."Â
He admitted that though he can't imagine his
life without track, he knows that professional athletics are not in his
future. Steffen is currently on the math team and is thinking of
majoring in economics and doing work in mathematics.
"For me, the
education is far more important,"Â Steffen said. "For sports, I just got
lucky. I've never even thought about being a professional athlete.
That's not an option at all. I just want to do education as well as I
can here and do sports, and that's it."Â
It's rare to find an athlete who has competed on a national team and
could possibly qualify for the 2012 Summer Olympics. It's even rarer
when the athlete shrugs his shoulders, laughs and says, "It's not that
cool."Â
Yet freshman Sebastian Steffen of the men's track and field
team fits that rare category. Steffen was part of the German B national
team in 2008 after finishing fifth in the 200m at the German men's
championships. When he was 16, Steffen finished second in the 400m at
the junior indoor German championships.
"He is possibly one of
the greatest athletes on campus, but upon meeting him you would never
guess because of the great humility he demonstrates,"Â said freshman John
Hutton, Steffen's roommate.
Steffen started track in fourth grade
when a German coach saw him run at an elementary school event.
"He
thought, ‘Hey, he looks pretty good,' [and asked] ‘You want to join the
track team?' "Â Steffen remembered.
Despite coming to campus as an
international student, the freshman found the transition onto the
Princeton team easy.
"I'm already a pretty old freshman, I guess,
because in Germany we have 13 years of school and after that I had to
serve for a year in civil service,"Â Steffen said.
"So I'm already
two years older than everyone else â€" senile," he joked.
After
being given a choice between civil and military service â€" where,
according to Steffen, "all you do is sit in front of buildings and do
nothing" Ã¢â‚¬" he chose civil service.
"I worked in a hospital in a
dialysis station,"Â Steffen said. "That was intense. That's where people
with malfunctioning kidneys come. I ordered supplies, I gave them their
insulin â€" there were a lot of diabetes patients â€" I prepared breakfast
for them, and fed them if they didn't have arms or legs anymore."Â
Steffen's
freshman indoor track season derailed unexpectedly due to an intramural
volleyball accident â€" something the track team still teases him for.
"It
was so dumb,"Â Steffen said. "I played intramural volleyball just for
fun. I jumped up for a block and came down and stepped on the other
guy's foot and sprained my ankle really, really badly. What kind of
sucks is that my right foot is still not as flexible as my other one so
it still bothers me a little bit when I'm running curves."Â
Since
Steffen's track team in Germany was small, he never genuinely got to
experience real team spirit until he came to Princeton.
"It's
really fun, the people are really nice, and it's just a good community â€"
everyone's supporting each other,"Â Steffen said. "They only make fun of
my accent and, I don't know, some German stereotypes or something"Â.
Steffen
has brought some aspects of his European track experience to Princeton.
"I
think that at European track meets, fans use a lot of horns and other
noisemakers,"Â junior co-captain Mike Eddy said. "Typically they don't do
that at collegiate meets in the U.S. Well, this winter Sebastian
single-handedly managed to get horns banned at the Ivy League indoor
track championships. He brought so many different horns and noisemakers
that we had the meet announcer repeatedly declaring that ‘Horns are
prohibited at the Ivy League championship.' Needless to say, we can no
longer use horns at track meets."Â
Steffen has also started his own
traditions on the team.
"For instance, I don't shave on the day
before a track meet. I don't know, I just don't do it,"Â Steffen said.
"There's a German saying that's like, ‘If you don't shave, you don't
lose.' "Â
He also collects all the safety pins used to attach his
race numbers at track meets on a long chain.
"I also took a couple
other people's, [so now I] have like 30,"Â Steffen said.
With much
of his collegiate career still ahead, the sprinter has a long list of
athletic goals, including breaking the Princeton 200m record, advancing
to the NCAA championships, reaching the 2012 Summer Olympics in London
and, most of all, making his coach happy.
"[To make the Olympics],
I have to run my [personal record] pretty much,"Â Steffen said. "I think
that's possible, though. I'm older now [and] I practice a lot more
now."Â
The "A"Â qualifying standard for the 200m at the 2009 world
track championships was 20.59 seconds, just a hair faster than Steffen's
best time.
"My PR is 20.89, which is three-tenths off, so if the
standard doesn't change I hope I can make it,"Â he said. "That's sort of
like the big goal."Â
He admitted that though he can't imagine his
life without track, he knows that professional athletics are not in his
future. Steffen is currently on the math team and is thinking of
majoring in economics and doing work in mathematics.
"For me, the
education is far more important,"Â Steffen said. "For sports, I just got
lucky. I've never even thought about being a professional athlete.
That's not an option at all. I just want to do education as well as I
can here and do sports, and that's it."Â