In senior distance runner Dylan Throop’s final season with Penn track and field, this year’s Penn Relays will be one for the record books before he transfers to Notre Dame.
Throop has taken Penn track and field by storm throughout his career. From setting program records in the 10K at Raleigh Relays this season to qualifying for the NCAA championships in 2023 and fall 2024, Throop has only gotten faster with time — and he cites his faith as a key reason for this improvement.
Despite his current prowess, running was never the defined plan for Throop. Raised in a Lutheran household as an elite gymnast since he was three years old, running was his natural talent, but he had not intended to take advantage of it.
Before gymnastics practice, Throop and his teammates would run for two miles as a conditioning warmup. While running with the team, Throop would trail away from everyone else — dashing farther ahead without hesitation.
“I was beating all of the older kids,” Throop recalled. “My coaches [noticed that I was] pretty good at running, and everyone was taking it so serious, too.”
After a decade of gymnastics, Throop noticed that he had lost his passion for the sport, so he honed in on his gift of running in middle school.
Throop’s supremacy in spikes only grew as he moved to the high school stage. Winning the 2019 Pennsylvania State Cross Country Championships confirmed what all spectators were beginning to understand: Throop was going to be one of the greats.
“It was a big upset because I was definitely still even growing in high school," Throop said. “I was definitely one of the smallest guys competitively in racing, and I had … really great training that year.”
Throop’s high school career culminated in this victorious moment, but for every peak, there is a valley. During his senior season, he again made it to the state championships, but God had a different plan for him.
“I ended up actually passing out because of heat stroke. … The state of Pennsylvania is so big [that] I had snow in Erie, Pennsylvania, and then I go to Hershey, Pennsylvania [where] it is 80 degrees. And so I had zero acclimation in November.”
His cross country career in high school ended in a difficult way, and the obstacles persisted. The COVID-19 pandemic began that spring, compromising his college recruitment. Fortunately, Throop’s former accomplishments aided his journey to Franklin Field.
“I never visited the campus. … [Head coach Steve] Dolan had essentially met me in that 2019 race, and after the race, he talked to my parents, and I just really liked how personable he was,” Throop said. “I loved the idea of going to Penn, and … I just liked being in Pennsylvania and being in Philadelphia.”
With that, Throop was officially a Quaker. Challenges aside, he was granted a fresh start at Penn, and his time here has undoubtedly been formative for his athletic and spiritual identity.
Throop’s sophomore year was the most transformative because of one significant change: his conversion to Catholicism. Alongside his close friend and Wharton senior Titus Bretzke, a Penn track and field alumnus, Catholicism shaped their future as both Quakers and men of faith. As devout members of the Penn Newman Catholic Center, their spiritual community provided growth, a sense of belonging, and new connections, and the two have dedicated much of their time towards assistance as altar servers at St. Agatha-St. James Roman Catholic Church.
“My sophomore and junior year, I stayed [at the Newman Center] more to study and talk to people about catechism-related [ideas], or just stuff that I was going through, and just became friends with them,” Throop said.
With Throop’s developing spirituality came the further development of his athletic preeminence. He qualified for the 2024 NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships and earned All-Academic honors from the United States Track and Field Cross Country Coaches Association.
Every runner has a distinctive routine when it comes to preparing for races, and Throop’s method has become increasingly prayerful as a result of his recent spiritual change. Before his races, Throop is often seen making the sign of the cross and praying to center himself, and he has found a helping hand to guide him around the Rogers-O’Hern Lyons Oval/Track.
“I try my best not to make God a genie in my life,” Throop said. “But I’ll ask [God] to give me strength or to have his will done through me. … If I’m meant to have a bad race today, so be it, because I love making mistakes and … being humbled because I definitely need it sometimes. Conversely, I want to use my performance to ultimately suffer and glorify [God].”
After running an incredible race at the 2024 Ivy League Heptagonal Cross Country Championships, Throop discovered that he had a fracture in two of his metatarsals, which ended his cross country season and prevented him from running at all during this year’s indoor and outdoor track and field seasons. His heartbreaking injury set him back for an entire season, but his spirit allowed him to persevere.
“[Dolan and I] agreed that we were going to train for [the] cross country season, which I think was the best thing, because I became an All-American this past year in cross country, and I had the best cross country season of my life,” Throop said. “That set me up to get recruited to Notre Dame.”
Because his injury caused him to miss a season, Throop will spend his final year of eligibility at Notre Dame. Though he was torn between multiple schools, he ultimately knew that he was ready to be a part of the Fighting Irish because of the team’s faithfulness.
Bretzke is also leaveing Penn to further celebrate his faith at Notre Dame before entering the seminary to become a priest.
“Dylan and I, we found each other on the team,” Bretzke said. “He’s a very extroverted person, and I’m a very introverted person. We were like polar opposites, but we both had this desire to be the best we could be. Throughout our time at Penn, we’ve just really been able to refine each other’s weaknesses, and [at Notre Dame], I think that sort of polar opposite refinement is going to continue.”
Before he moves on, Throop has one more chance to make an impact on Franklin Field, competing in his final Penn Relays as a Quaker.
“Penn Relays’ 5K is my favorite race, especially from my freshman year [as] I had a huge breakthrough there,” Throop said. “This is special because it’s my last home Penn Relays. I’m getting emotional just thinking about it, but I think this one is going to mean a lot. And I am going to race really hard and leave it all out there.”
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