MICHAEL MONROE
A High Jumper’s Road to Sweden
Mikael Monroe is 22 years old from Chicago, IL and one of the recent graduates and student
athletes from the University of Pennsylvania. Michael is one of the very talented and promising
athletes in High Jump and he is the recent winner of the prestigious Ivy League Track and Field
Championship. Here is the story of he jumped his way to Karlstad to train with the Olympic
Medalist, Stefan Holm.
We meet Mike in a cafe just outside of the University of Pennsylvania
campus in West Philadelphia. He is already sitting down waiting for us
sipping on an iced chai latte. Amanda and I met Mike, or Michael,
earlier this year when we were invited to host a Swedish class at
University of Pennsylvania. He was one of the students in the class, and
was in his second semester studying Swedish at the time. Mike is also
one of the student athletes in the University of Pennsylvania’s Track
and Field team and he is trying to go to Sweden to pursue his dream
of becoming a professional high jumper.
“How
Sweden
came about
is actually
pretty
random”
“How Sweden came about is actually pretty random” Mike begins. A few years ago during
the Youth World Championship in Athletics in Ukraine he made friends with a Swede, Henrik,
who was also there competing in high jump. Mike scored an impressive 16 th place by the
way. After the event he stayed in contact with Henrik and it turned out that he was training
with the Swedish all time high jump legend and Olympic gold medalist, Stefan Holm, in
Karlstad, Sweden. Last summer, Mike decided to visit Henrik in Karlstad who helped him get
introduced to the Swedish Track and Field team there, “It was all very informal but I was able
to train with the team for two weeks.” There he met and trained with Stefan Holm. “I watched
him on TV growing up and he is like a hero to me. I was almost afraid to ask him for advice.”
Mike could already see improvements after just training for two weeks with the team and he
got along great with the coaches: “I asked if I could come back to Karlstad to train with the
team full time, and they said yes.” And that is how you ended up going to Sweden? “Yes,
pretty much.”
Getting on the Track and Field team was the easy part, Mike continued. Since the Athletic
club in Karlstad was not able to sponsor the Swedish visa his biggest worry would be to find
a job in Sweden. He then explained that this was the main reason for studying Swedish - to
help him get a job. After applying to multiple jobs he found a job as a student counselor at
the local English School in Karlstad.
page 24