Mattis, the 2015 NCAA National Champion in the discus, topped all competitors with a 62.51-meter throw (205 feet, 1 inch) in the first round of Friday’s semifinal. His mark remained in the top three through the next five rounds, propelling him to the Tokyo Olympics. (The top three finishers advance to the Olympics, as long as they meet the Olympic standard.)
In an interview with NJ.com before the Olympic Trials, Mattis said he turned down a job on Wall Street with JP Morgan Chase to focus on his discus career.
“It’s the outright dream of most boys to be a professional athlete,” he said. “I never really thought that would be my path, but after I won NCAAs for Penn in 2015, I thought, ‘Maybe I can do this for real.’”
Sam Mattis competes in the Penn Relays during his undergraduate years at Penn.
(Image: Scott Spitzer)
To support himself, he did marketing for a pharmacist, worked for a startup, started a supplement company, and made money through sports betting and blackjack. He also worked as a volunteer assistant coach for the Rutgers track & field team.
The Tokyo Olympics open on July 21. The men’s discus qualifying round will take place on the morning of July 30, with the final the following evening.
Mattis is the first Penn track & field athlete to compete in the Olympics since Michael Aguilar, a 2001 alumnus, ran the 400-meter hurdles for Belize in 2004. Fred Samara, a 1973 Wharton graduate, was the last Penn track & field athlete to represent the U.S. at the Olympics. He competed in the decathlon in 1976.
In Senegal, the ambitious Dakar Greenbelt project seeks to create an extensive network of ecological infrastructure in and around the city to sustainably address environmental concerns and enhance urban life. With support from David Gouverneur and Ellen Neises, Ph.D. candidate Rob Levinthal in the Weitzman School of Design led two courses that included a field trip to Dakar, that culminated in students presenting their visions for parts of the Greenbelt.
From a desert to an oasis: Penn engages in ambitious greening effort in the Sahel
Students from the Weitzman School of Design journeyed to Senegal to help with a massive ecological and infrastructural greening effort as part of their coursework. The Dakar Greenbelt aims to combat desertification and promote sustainable urban growth.
As part of an undergraduate course, Penn faculty and students curated an Arthur Ross Gallery exhibition of works from the Neumann family’s extensive collection of modern and contemporary art.
The University’s nexus for technology transfer supports researchers in their innovative efforts, from CAR T to mRNA advancements that have dramatically reshaped the world.
