Daniel Pietsch had just crossed the finish line in the finals of the men’s 400-meter race at the Atlantic Coast Conference Championships on Saturday when a familiar face walked over to him.
“Good job,” said Duke’s Steven Solomon, who reached out and shook Pietsch’s hand.
Solomon wasn’t just another competitor. Studying for his master’s at the Fuqua School of Business, Solomon is a five-time 400-meter champion in Australia and competed in the 2012 Summer Olympics, where he finished eighth in the 400-meter final as a 19-year-old.
| PROFILE
Daniel Pietsch
>> School: Georgia Tech
>> Class: Junior
>> Event: Sprints
>> High school: Seabury Hall (2014)
>> Notes: NCAA Division III outdoor national champion in men’s 400 meters as a sophomore at Emory University in Georgia. … Was indoor runner-up at NCAA Division III championships as a sophomore. … Two-time outdoor D-III All-American.
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Pietsch, who only started running track as a junior in high school, finished sixth at the ACC Championships for Georgia Tech with a time of 46.98 seconds — 0.82 seconds behind Solomon.
“That was just crazy to realize I’m kind of somewhat at that level now — which is like actually running against some of the best people in the world,” Pietsch said in a phone interview Tuesday. “He set the ACC Championship record in the prelims and then told me (he) kind of chilled in the final because he was hurting a little bit.”
Still, it’s just one of many instances that Pietsch has found himself not quite shocked, but a little in awe of where his track career has taken him.
A soccer and volleyball player in high school at Seabury Hall (class of 2014), Pietsch decided to run cross country just to get into shape for soccer season.
“I was terrible at it,” Pietsch admitted, but one thing he quickly realized was he could beat most of his teammates in a sprint.
He decided he’d try out for track in the spring and told coach Bobby Grossman that he thought he should try hurdles because he was tall.
“He put me in a 400 (race) to kind of prepare me for (the 300 hurdles), and I ran like a 56 (seconds),” Pietsch said. “So not fast but pretty good for your first run, and he kept me in the 400 after that.”
After placing third in the MIL as a junior, Pietsch’s times were improving drastically, so he filled out and sent questionnaires to a few Division III schools.
“I thought I might be able to maybe compete in Division III,” Pietsch said. “The Emory coach was the only one who called me on the phone and encouraged me to come out and take a visit.”
He went on to win the state title in the 400 meters as a senior and was accepted into an engineering program that would keep him at Emory College, a school in Atlanta, for three years before taking all of his engineering classes at Georgia Tech over the final two years.
Although he was improving every day on the track, his path to a college degree was based on academics first.
“When I started college, I knew I was going to end up at Georgia Tech, but I didn’t really think I had a shot at actually running here,” Pietsch said. “I thought maybe I could walk on, but that’s not really how it went.”
Pietsch was the University Athletic Association rookie of the year as a freshman at Emory and then finished second in indoor at the NCAA Division III championships before winning the national title during the outdoor season.
As a junior, Pietsch decided to redshirt, partially because his coach at Emory left, but also so that he could have two seasons of eligibility with the Yellow Jackets.
He wrapped up his first indoor season in Division I in the ACC Championships, where he beat his personal best by nearly a second.
“Most of the championship races I’ve had, I’ve ended up running personal-best times in the finals,” Pietsch said. “I can’t say I was expecting to do any of the things that I’ve ended up doing. You kind of just put in the work throughout the season and hope for big things at the end when you taper off and it’s worked out really well.”
Pietsch has exactly 20 days off between the end of the indoor season and the start of the outdoor season at the Yellow Jacket Invitational.
Pietsch’s 46.98 last weekend nearly matched his best time outdoors. Normally the outdoor times are much faster than indoor.
“It took me a minute to let my (indoor) time (sink in) because it was so close to my outdoor best,” Pietsch said. “I’m still getting better and I think a lot of it is just continued hard work.
“I’m getting older and I think that plays a big role in getting faster because I don’t think I’m at my peak in terms of physical ability just yet. Hopefully I’ve still got a few more years.”
