UCLA heptathlete hopes work ethic will help her become No.1

Junior heptathlete Tatum Souza’s first foray into track and field began her sophomore year of high school. It wasn’t the smoothest of transitions, but she made up for it with her natural affinity for sports.

“There was no idea what I’d even be good at, so they just randomly started throwing me in different events, and I was picking stuff up pretty easily, because I’ve always played other sports,” said Souza, who also played on the basketball and volleyball teams in high school.

By her junior year, Souza switched to the heptathlon at her coach’s suggestion, and a year in the event led her to a fateful meet at UCLA in the summer, where her performance caught the eye of college recruiters.

“I was actually (at UCLA), and I was competing against their current heptathlete at the time,” Souza said. “And that’s how I got recruited by a lot of schools, but ended up picking UCLA.”

Now, Souza aims to be the top-ranked heptathlete in the nation. She will not have the opportunity to improve her ranking at the Rafer Johnson/Jackie Joyner-Kersee Invitational that will take place this Saturday at Drake Stadium, however. Instead, she’ll be competing in the open events against the event specialists, and treating this as a chance to work on those individual areas.

“It will be a nice, kind of breather. … We can’t really do a heptathlon every week because it’s really hard on the body, and a lot of teams don’t even have heptathletes, so it’s not like we can just go one-on-one with their heptathletes,” Souza said.

Heptathletes compete over a span of two days: they do the 100-meter hurdles, high jump, shot put and 200 meters on the first, followed by the long jump, javelin and 800 meters on the second.

Souza enjoys the variety that the heptathlon offers; according to her, there’s never a boring day at practice. She also acknowledged that inherent in the format of the heptathlon is the challenge of needing to adapt to the next event as soon as the current one is over.

She also sees the humorous side of competing in several events at a single meet.

“It’s so funny coming out to meets and carrying eight different pairs of shoes, where each just has a little bit something different that’s supposed to help with your event,” Souza said.

The need to train for seven different events comes with certain sacrifices; Souza and her teammates spend six days a week working on their techniques over practice.

Souza credits her teammates with helping her overcome the drudgery of practice. She particularly cites their constant motivation to work hard, and their collective will to win.

Souza’s close friend and training partner, redshirt sophomore heptathlete Kimmie Conner, shares this sentiment.

“We’re just really similar and we really feed off of each other a lot. She is one of the most motivated people I know, and her desire to succeed is just amazing. It’s really nice for me to train with someone who wants to be so great,” Conner said.

Heptathlon coach Jack Hoyt believes that Souza possesses all the right tools to be successful, and that it’s only a matter of time before she’ll be able to achieve her goal of becoming the nation’s top heptathlete.

“(Souza) wants the most out of herself all the time, and that’s a great attribute to have,” Hoyt said. “She just has to keep plugging away at her technique and keep working on being patient with learning it, and I think it’ll all come. … She’s not far away at all.”

Souza, however, recognizes that the road to the top will not be an easy one, especially with the number of talented rivals that stand in her way. In spite of that, she believes that there is one trait she possesses that will give her an edge over the competition.

“Now that I’m getting to higher-end meets, I’m seeing lots of people who are pretty talented, but I’ve always kind of prided myself on even if people are more talented than I am, I will definitely work harder. So I think that’s probably what ultimately will help me get there,” Souza said.