For Sam Grywacz, competition has meant everything to him, it's what gets him coming back for more every time, however for Sam, he doesn't need to have his impact show up on record sheets. For Sam, it extends way further beyond the field. That love for competing showed up early, across baseball, running, and whatever else he could find to put the work in, and it was never really about being the most talented guy on the roster. "I love competition and just competing constantly. The idea of sports and how well you can compete day in and day out, I just love every part of that." 

Sam admits he wasn't always the greatest athlete, but he still wanted to be part of a team and compete, that drive and thrill never left him. What started as picking up a baseball bat and a pair of running shoes turned out to be one of  Sam's greatest decisions in life. Now that he's captured that thrill and love for the game, Sam now poses a pull toward bringing others to chase that same exact feeling. 

That first pull for Sam showed up off the field. Sam spent his first four years at UW-Stevens Point, those first four years were all supposed to be strictly academics alone. Sam's focus was first arriving on campus to become a teacher and a coach, a clear-cut vision that seemed perfect to him, however, more was in store than he knew. Also, during those first four years, Sam picked up coaching on the side. In his words, "I had an absolute blast, it was some of the most fun I've had," he says, and that stretch quietly became the moment everything changed. 

Sam had spent years bouncing between majors, trying to find his exact perfect situation where that drive for coaching could fit, however, he realized there was a calling he couldn't ignore. He just wanted to coach a team not only to victory but to have the same thrill and passion for the sport he had picked up on early on. 

This is where Sam realized he couldn't complete his dream at UW-Stevens Point, he knew he needed a new scenery. 

Where Sam was headed next turned out to be almost a complete accident, tied to a school that he had been on his radar years prior. Saint Mary's University sat at the top of his list coming out of high school back in 2021, before distance and the uncertainty of COVID steered him elsewhere, and when he circled back to it during his search for a new start, he ended up submitting a form for something he hadn't planned on: running collegiately. 

"Next thing I knew, I was getting a text from Coach Schneider, hey I want you to run for me, and I just said, sure, why not-I hadn't ran competitive at that point in four years," he says. Close to a thousand days since he had laced the shoes up in a race, yet the fit ended up being exactly what he needed, both as a competitor and as someone still chasing that coaching path. 

Competing again became its own kind of comeback, one he hadn't fully expected to make.  

That comeback hasn't gone the way he pictured it, with injuries keeping him off the course more than he would like, and it's there that his love of competing and his instinct to coach started to merge into one. Rather than let the setbacks sideline him entirely, Sam turned toward his teammates, becoming the guy pushing others forward even when he couldn't push himself. 

"I try to help as much as possible and wherever coach wants, I'm always willing to help and talk to guys, try to encourage them," he says. He was careful not to force that role early on, choosing instead to step back and let the team's seniors lead, because he didn't want to be the guy who thought he knew everything. 

Once he had earned his footing as a teammate first, encouraging others stopped feeling like a substitute for competing and started feeling like its own form of it.

That shift became clearest last year, when a roster of just six guys sat down at the beginning of the season and asked what kind of lasting impact they could leave behind. The answer became a standard built on showing up, working hard, and supporting each other, no matter what the results looked like on a given weekend. Small teams feel every setback more than a deep roster would, and injuries didn't make that any easier, yet the new culture never cracked. "We were there every day supporting each other, everyone was encouraging - there weren't any really bad attitudes, nothing like that," he says. With the incoming class set to be double the size of last year's team, Sam has leaned further into that same role, helping recruit and welcome the very guys who will carry that culture forward.

All of this- the competing, the comeback, the encouraging, the recruiting- keeps circling back to one singular thing: coaching. Sam is straightforward that his years at Stevens Point are what solidified that path, but everything since has only reinforced it to the fullest, from mentoring teammates through injuries to helping shape a program's culture from the inside. 

"I wouldn't trade anything for the world, my journey has been awesome - there's been highs and lows and everything in between, so I still wouldn't trade it though," he says. His advice to athletes facing their own setbacks reads like something out of a coach's playbook: "Never see anything as a failure, because the only true failure is giving up. "You just have to keep learning and be that everyday learner in everything you do - sports, life, all of it," he says, a lesson he clearly plans to keep teaching long after his own running career winds down.

When Sam's time at Saint Mary's eventually comes to a close, he makes it clear he doesn't want to leave a legacy behind of numbers on a record wall, rather, what he wishes to leave behind is far more impactful. He hopes to leave behind a legacy of image. "I hope that they remember that I was a good dude that they say he tried his best, he was always positive, he was always a nice guy, he did everything he could to try to help," he says. He hopes teammates, coaches, and future Cardinals see him as someone who showed up for the people around him even when it felt impossible to do it for himself at times. "He wasn't just there for himself either; he tried to help everyone else around him, he was just a generally good guy," he says. 

Sam Grywacz may never get back the races injuries took from him, but somewhere along the way, without ever chasing it, he became the coach he'd always dreamed of being, and now the finish lines that matter most are the ones he helps every guy behind him reach: It Just Means More.