Pearson headed to Marshall

Mara Pearson quickly made a name for herself on the Fort Recovery track team.

After she hangs up the purple, she will have the opportunity to do it again in green.

The Fort Recovery High School senior signed her national letter of intent to compete with the Marshall University Thundering Herd track team after high school.

“It was really nice and super relieving,” Pearson said. “Especially with having all the stress of evaluating what would fit me best academically, what would fit me best athletically?

“I think it was really nice to choose this before going into the meat of my indoor meets, as well with outdoor season coming up.”

Pearson found immediate success as a long jumper, reaching the state finals in her freshman year.

In her sophomore season, Pearson broke through to medal, finishing seventh.

Her career took off during her junior season, after making the decision to stop playing basketball in favor of joining the indoor track team to get more opportunities to work on her craft. As a result, Pearson put herself in a position to be the top seed at the state meet last year, and ended up placing second by only three-quarters of an inch.

“She is relentless in terms of trying to find ways to improve,” FRHS track coach Christy Diller said. “She seeks out those other avenues to try and make herself as good as she can, and that’s clearly paid off in the last year.

“Sometimes that gets to be the situation where you have too many cooks in the kitchen, but she does a really nice job of assimilating all of that and focusing on the key things.

“She’s already a great jumper, but I have no doubt that she’ll continue to get better and better.”

For Marshall, the seed was planted right after the state meet when she connected with its assistant coach according to Pearson. From there, she had a visit in the summer and that seed grew.

Mara Pearson flies through the air on one of her attempts during the state finals at Jesse Owens Memorial Stadium at Ohio State University. Pearson finished second with a jump of 18 feet, 5 inches. (The Commercial Review/Andrew Balko)

“Once they brought me in for a visit around August, I felt a really good connection with the team and the atmosphere,” Pearson said. “I felt really comfortable with where I was and that really helped seal the deal.”

Along with the connection she felt with the team, Marshall was attractive from an academic standpoint for Pearson. She currently plans on majoring in electrical engineering, a program that not all schools offer. Finding a school that fit her athletically and academically was important to her, and with updated engineering facilities, and a strong electrical engineering program helped satisfy the schooling side.

Something that excites Pearson about competing in college is the opportunity to compete in different events. At the high school level, the only jumping events are long and high jump. Events like the triple jump and the standing long jump will provide Pearson with a variety of options to try out and see what she is best at.

“I’m excited to just try things out,” Pearson said. “If I get to do them, it’s OK. If I don’t get to do them it’s OK too. It’s just having the freedom to try new things, instead of doing the same thing every single day.”

For now, Pearson gets to focus on her indoor and outdoor seasons and enjoy the final go-around without being worried about being recruited and planning for the future.

“I think this past year, just how much fun I had during my state compared to my other two years was just huge,” Pearson said. “So I really think this year, I can just find what makes me happy, and I can really just improve off of that.”