Impactful Time at Montana State Carries Sam Bloom Into Next Journey
4/24/2020 2:30:00 PM | Men's Track and Field
Sam Bloom proved to be a versatile contributor to Montana State in more than just the 800-meter run
BOZEMAN, Mont. – For nine months out of the year, it'd be hard not to see Samuel Bloom around Brick Breeden Fieldhouse. The mid-distance runner on the men's track and field team spent countless hours at the home of Bobcat Athletics from the start of the school year in August until the end of the track season in the middle of May.
That's the case when you're a jack of all trades like Bloom.
"I probably spent more hours around that fieldhouse than anybody else I know," Bloom said. "It's hard to think of a successful Montana State athlete I haven't been able to become friends with in one avenue or another."
Bloom has spent five years attending Montana State University. While studying mechanical engineering – and earning multiple Big Sky Conference All-Academic Team selections – Bloom also lent his time to photography. He shot photos of his peers on the track, to recently working the NCAA Skiing Championships in Bozeman as well as a variety of other sporting events. Bloom's work found its way on to the sites and printed work of media that cover MSU as well as on Bobcat Athletic social media pages and on its website.
"I think the reason why photo became something that I enjoyed so much, was not only being around all the other sports, but I think because engineering is so calculated," Bloom said. "You're spending all your coursework trying to get right answers and there's a specific way to do things, but photography provided a creative outlet for me. It was a different flavor from studying mechanical engineering."
But Bloom's primary motivation during the 2019-20 academic year was what was to come with his senior season on the track. While the Spokane, Wash., native used his final indoor season of eligibility in 2019, he redshirted last spring to help bolster a Bobcat men's team during the 2020 outdoor season. It was a team he believed had a prime opportunity for a Big Sky Conference title at the Championship meet in Ogden this May.
"It's no secret the whole reason I came back for this fifth year was for the outdoor season," Bloom said. "It was pretty early on that academically, that if I took a lot of classes, that I could have graduated in four years. But it came down to that I wanted to be part of the team for another year and spent that time working towards the outdoor season. It was really my main focus."
Bloom's end to his 2019 season may have been a sign of what was to come this spring.
The 2019 Big Sky Indoor Championships were held inside Worthington Arena in Bozeman and Bloom put together his best collegiate meet to date. He completed the top time in the Big Sky during the season in the 800 – and the sixth best mark in program history – of 1:50.35 to put himself into prime position at the meet. He eventually secured a silver medal in the event for his first individual all-conference performance of his collegiate career.
But the highpoint for Bloom came in the distance medley relay. Ahead of the race, he emphasized to teammate Chris Bianchini that they weren't going to lose to any competitors they faced on the track. He eventually was correct. The Bobcats relay team of Bloom, Bianchini, Bill Yeager and Cameron Carroll won the race in a time of 9:52.67, the eighth fastest in program history.
"I think that has to be the highlight of my career," Bloom said. "I remember telling everybody afterwards that that was the moment that made college track as much fun as high school track for me. A lot of kids have this experience if you make it to the level that Division I competition offers. The high school competition wasn't the same, you just won and it was fun to do that. But when you get to the Division I level, everybody is on the same level.
"After working through some ups and downs and having some success, especially against a Northern Arizona team that had a national champion in the mile on its relay team, winning it was pretty special."
MSU wound up finishing runner-up in the team standings, the Bobcats' best Big Sky Indoor Championship finish in six years. With a gold and silver medal in tow, Bloom saw the potential the Bobcats possessed with several of his teammates preparing to use the 2019 outdoor schedule to ramp up for 2020.
Bloom spent the fall and winter prepping for this upcoming outdoor season, one in which he said he'd trained the best he ever had while at MSU.
"A look at my training logs, it was shaping up to be something special especially with the guys the team had on it," Bloom said of MSU's potential 2020 outdoor hopes. "We were pretty optimistic and excited about the season, but with outside circumstances, I don't really have any answers. We were prepared for this outdoor season and I was putting in everything I could handle to make it to go the way we wanted. To be (at MSU) just for track and to not have it was definitely tough."
While track and field student-athletes were among the spring sports that the NCAA granted a year of eligibility left, impending graduation from MSU and post-career ambitions have Bloom wrapping up his time in Bozeman. Instead, Bloom will be going full-time into his summer work experience.
For the previous four summers, Bloom has spent the months away from Bozeman working commercial fishing jobs. Though coronavirus concerns have left the industry "up in the air" like most jobs currently, he's set up to work on a boat that will travel to the chain of Aleutian Islands which are located southwest of the main portion of Alaska. His plan is to work 8-9 months of a year for the time being commercial fishing with his mechanical engineering degree to fall back on.
It's a job that he's looking forward to putting his concentration towards. Something he's thrived at when he's focused on whatever task he's turned his attention to before.
"I was coming back every year at pretty much ground zero for fitness wise," Bloom said of returning to Bozeman following each summer. "But the way it worked out, I was able to kind of balance both because I wasn't running a cross country season. It was pretty convenient in the way it worked it out and the coaches were willing to work with me on that. It was kind of a dual passion kind of thing.
"Now the next couple of years, I will kind of focus on setting up a life for myself. I'm pretty thankful I was able to run track and get super out of shape during the summers."
Bloom became a contributor to not only the Bobcat track and field program on the score sheet at championship meets, but also the MSU community during his five years on campus. His story, while different in success and trials one may go through as a student-athlete, became similar to his fellow seniors of 2020. But, it's an experience he'll always appreciate.
"It meant everything to kind of come back and watch the young kids develop and watch the older members of the team expand on their abilities," Bloom said. "It's hard to explain going through some of those workouts with your teammates, you just build lifelong friendships. It meant everything to me.
"Getting to have five years at Montana State was a blessing. The way it came down to it is unfortunate, but I hope in not taking the sixth year, it doesn't take away from the five years that I had in Bozeman. From day one of being an 18-year-old kid and graduating in five years, I felt support the whole time. Anybody that's been part of that, I'm just really thankful for."
That's the case when you're a jack of all trades like Bloom.
"I probably spent more hours around that fieldhouse than anybody else I know," Bloom said. "It's hard to think of a successful Montana State athlete I haven't been able to become friends with in one avenue or another."
Bloom has spent five years attending Montana State University. While studying mechanical engineering – and earning multiple Big Sky Conference All-Academic Team selections – Bloom also lent his time to photography. He shot photos of his peers on the track, to recently working the NCAA Skiing Championships in Bozeman as well as a variety of other sporting events. Bloom's work found its way on to the sites and printed work of media that cover MSU as well as on Bobcat Athletic social media pages and on its website.
"I think the reason why photo became something that I enjoyed so much, was not only being around all the other sports, but I think because engineering is so calculated," Bloom said. "You're spending all your coursework trying to get right answers and there's a specific way to do things, but photography provided a creative outlet for me. It was a different flavor from studying mechanical engineering."
But Bloom's primary motivation during the 2019-20 academic year was what was to come with his senior season on the track. While the Spokane, Wash., native used his final indoor season of eligibility in 2019, he redshirted last spring to help bolster a Bobcat men's team during the 2020 outdoor season. It was a team he believed had a prime opportunity for a Big Sky Conference title at the Championship meet in Ogden this May.
"It's no secret the whole reason I came back for this fifth year was for the outdoor season," Bloom said. "It was pretty early on that academically, that if I took a lot of classes, that I could have graduated in four years. But it came down to that I wanted to be part of the team for another year and spent that time working towards the outdoor season. It was really my main focus."
Bloom's end to his 2019 season may have been a sign of what was to come this spring.
The 2019 Big Sky Indoor Championships were held inside Worthington Arena in Bozeman and Bloom put together his best collegiate meet to date. He completed the top time in the Big Sky during the season in the 800 – and the sixth best mark in program history – of 1:50.35 to put himself into prime position at the meet. He eventually secured a silver medal in the event for his first individual all-conference performance of his collegiate career.
But the highpoint for Bloom came in the distance medley relay. Ahead of the race, he emphasized to teammate Chris Bianchini that they weren't going to lose to any competitors they faced on the track. He eventually was correct. The Bobcats relay team of Bloom, Bianchini, Bill Yeager and Cameron Carroll won the race in a time of 9:52.67, the eighth fastest in program history.
"I think that has to be the highlight of my career," Bloom said. "I remember telling everybody afterwards that that was the moment that made college track as much fun as high school track for me. A lot of kids have this experience if you make it to the level that Division I competition offers. The high school competition wasn't the same, you just won and it was fun to do that. But when you get to the Division I level, everybody is on the same level.
"After working through some ups and downs and having some success, especially against a Northern Arizona team that had a national champion in the mile on its relay team, winning it was pretty special."
MSU wound up finishing runner-up in the team standings, the Bobcats' best Big Sky Indoor Championship finish in six years. With a gold and silver medal in tow, Bloom saw the potential the Bobcats possessed with several of his teammates preparing to use the 2019 outdoor schedule to ramp up for 2020.
Bloom spent the fall and winter prepping for this upcoming outdoor season, one in which he said he'd trained the best he ever had while at MSU.
"A look at my training logs, it was shaping up to be something special especially with the guys the team had on it," Bloom said of MSU's potential 2020 outdoor hopes. "We were pretty optimistic and excited about the season, but with outside circumstances, I don't really have any answers. We were prepared for this outdoor season and I was putting in everything I could handle to make it to go the way we wanted. To be (at MSU) just for track and to not have it was definitely tough."
While track and field student-athletes were among the spring sports that the NCAA granted a year of eligibility left, impending graduation from MSU and post-career ambitions have Bloom wrapping up his time in Bozeman. Instead, Bloom will be going full-time into his summer work experience.
For the previous four summers, Bloom has spent the months away from Bozeman working commercial fishing jobs. Though coronavirus concerns have left the industry "up in the air" like most jobs currently, he's set up to work on a boat that will travel to the chain of Aleutian Islands which are located southwest of the main portion of Alaska. His plan is to work 8-9 months of a year for the time being commercial fishing with his mechanical engineering degree to fall back on.
It's a job that he's looking forward to putting his concentration towards. Something he's thrived at when he's focused on whatever task he's turned his attention to before.
"I was coming back every year at pretty much ground zero for fitness wise," Bloom said of returning to Bozeman following each summer. "But the way it worked out, I was able to kind of balance both because I wasn't running a cross country season. It was pretty convenient in the way it worked it out and the coaches were willing to work with me on that. It was kind of a dual passion kind of thing.
"Now the next couple of years, I will kind of focus on setting up a life for myself. I'm pretty thankful I was able to run track and get super out of shape during the summers."
Bloom became a contributor to not only the Bobcat track and field program on the score sheet at championship meets, but also the MSU community during his five years on campus. His story, while different in success and trials one may go through as a student-athlete, became similar to his fellow seniors of 2020. But, it's an experience he'll always appreciate.
"It meant everything to kind of come back and watch the young kids develop and watch the older members of the team expand on their abilities," Bloom said. "It's hard to explain going through some of those workouts with your teammates, you just build lifelong friendships. It meant everything to me.
"Getting to have five years at Montana State was a blessing. The way it came down to it is unfortunate, but I hope in not taking the sixth year, it doesn't take away from the five years that I had in Bozeman. From day one of being an 18-year-old kid and graduating in five years, I felt support the whole time. Anybody that's been part of that, I'm just really thankful for."
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