Ludwick Finds Flock at Creighton

For some athletes, a match, meet or game can't start without the familiar melody of a specific song blasting in their ears. For others, readiness comes in repetition: the same pair of socks, the same pre-game meal, the same unwavering routine.

For Creighton javelin thrower Jacob Ludwick, the moments before a meet are quieter and more profound. He doesn't look for strength in a playlist or a lucky charm; Ludwick's inspiration strikes from thinking about all the people who knew him before the lights of the stadium turned on.

"With every collegiate meet that I've had, I've picked somebody in my life who's been close to me that has benefited my life in some sort of way," said Ludwick. "Then, I spend my entire warmup and the whole pre-meet thinking about how this person has impacted my life in a beneficial way and how I'm grateful for that person."

While Ludwick's mental preparation is now a disciplined exercise in gratitude, his physical affinity for the sport was always more of an instinct. Growing up in Clay Center, Kansas, with parents Matt and Ricki, and his two brothers, Luke and Jonathan, were all drawn to sports.

For Ludwick, both the baseball diamond and football field called to him. He spent his childhood as a pitcher and quarterback. Then, when his dad, a former collegiate hammer and javelin thrower, introduced Ludwick to the sport in middle school, a pattern became clear.

"I love to throw things," explained Ludwick. "Being a pitcher, you're just throwing the ball almost as hard as you can every time. Then getting into javelin, I was slightly gifted to start and it was fun throwing the javelin just a little bit further and a little bit further. I got hooked."

By the time he reached his junior year at Clay Center Community High School, Ludwick began to see that his collegiate future might not lie under the lights with a ball in hand.

"After realizing there could be a collegiate interest in javelin and not football, it was kind of eye opening. Granted, it was just one community college, so it was nothing major, but that sparked the feeling of, 'Oh, maybe I have a shot at this,'" Ludwick said. "But it wasn't until my senior year where I made the shift from football to javelin."

That year, an injury and a possible stroke of what Ludwick called "divine intervention" helped make his decision for him. During a midseason football game, the senior suffered an intense concussion that resulted in the temporary loss of all his motor skills. After being rushed to the emergency room and getting treated, he returned home to find three recruitment offers waiting — not for football, but for javelin.

Ludwick didn't sign with those schools, but the injury permanently shifted his focus, and when Ottawa University asked him to join the team for the 2022-23 season, he committed.

When Ludwick arrived at Ottawa in 2022, he finally had the collegiate platform he'd been seeking, but it came with a catch: seclusion.

"Other than myself, we did not have any consistent javelin throwers. We had guys come over and try it, but nobody was full in on javelin, so there was a lot of solitude," remembered Ludwick.

The silence at the track extended to the coaching staff. With no specialized javelin coach at Ottawa to refine his technique, Ludwick continued to rely on his father as a teacher.

"My dad coached the throwers at a community college [close to Ottawa] … and most of the track meets that [my dad's team] went to lined up with Ottawa's schedule, so he was able to coach me there. On weekends, when I'd go back home, I would train with him," said Ludwick.

By then, home for Matt and Ricki was Gardner, Kansas, a short 20-minute drive from Ottawa. This made those short trips home a space for constant refinement of Ludwick's form, both mentally and physically.

"My dad's able to give out some great pointers and tips that have helped me to get where I am right now," said Ludwick. "His biggest advice to me was always, 'just throw.' Javelin is super technical, so you have to think about one or two things that you want to drill on every single throw. Hearing him say 'breathe, just throw' … helped me go back to my foundational technique and just trust in that to get a good mark out."

His dad's simple instruction — to breathe and trust the work — became the foundation for Ludwick's mental game when the stakes shifted from collegiate meets to the national stage in the first semester of his freshman year at Ottawa.

In October, Ludwick qualified for the 2022 International University Sports Federation America Games and was flown to Mexico, where he earned the silver medal for Team USA. While the podium finish was a career-defining athletic achievement, it also provided Ludwick with a global stage for a deeply personal tribute.

"When I was there, my grandma had a health injury and she had open heart surgery, so I was able to teach myself — with my friend's help — some sign language," recalled Ludwick. "I actually medaled at that meet, so when I got onto the podium, I did the little signing where I told my grandma that the track meet was for her and she watched it on TV, which was pretty cool."

With the relief of his grandmother's recovery and a silver medal to his name, Ludwick returned to Ottawa ready to build on his momentum. Over the next two years, Ludwick fast-tracked his undergraduate degree — completing it in three years — and collected All-American honors along the way.

In 2024, as Ludwick prepared for the next chapter — a doctorate program in physical therapy — he wasn't quite ready to put down his javelin. As he debated his next steps, a chance meeting with Creighton coach Chris Gannon at a meet in Wichita turned Ludwick's attention toward Omaha.

"When I went to a meet at Wichita State, I visited with Gannon about my interest in physical therapy, that I had applied to Creighton and gotten in, and he was pretty ecstatic to have a javelin thrower reach out because Creighton's never had javelin," said Ludwick. "He's very eager and outgoing and that kind of helped me buy into Creighton before I even know anything about it."

Throwing at a school with a nonexistent javelin program would require Ludwick to look beyond the traditional statistics tactics that drive recruiting and believe in the Creighton program itself. Gannon helped Ludwick see where he could fit in.

"He made a lot of promises. He talked about the community of Creighton a lot — which is talked about everywhere — and now I understand why, because I also talk about it. So that helped me," said the Kansas native.

For Ludwick, that community had to be more than just a friendly campus; it had to be a specialized support system. He told Gannon that his two nonnegotiables if he were to commit to Creighton were being surrounded by a team and having a javelin coach. Soon, Gannon's promises convinced Ludwick and he committed to Creighton for the 2024-25 javelin season.

When Ludwick entered the fold of the Creighton Cross Country and Track program, he felt Gannon's commitment instantly.

"Gannon's done everything he can. He's gone to different clinics, he's gone through other coaches, he's gone through liaisons and done everything he can do to improve his javelin knowledge to where he is able to coach the athletes at a high level now," said Ludwick.

His teammates also embraced Ludwick as a part of the team, the isolation of training at Ottawa replaced by a tight-knit group of student-athletes eager to support him.

"The guys on the team, every one of those guys is a solid dude. They were excited to have a javelin thrower, a new aspect to Creighton Cross Country, Track and Field," Ludwick said. "They came out to practices, they came out to meets to support and to watch, even if they had other things they could be doing. That made the team aspect really apparent in those days."

As the Creighton community extended a warm embrace, Ludwick's commitment to Creighton still put him in a unique position. He was going to have to adjust to being in a program that had never supported a javelin thrower.

That meant that Ludwick was the first for everything, forcing him to shift what goals and motivation looked like.

"I changed my outlook from my Creighton legacy to what I can do each day and then see how my throw reflects on that," described Ludwick. "I have outcome goals that were making it to nationals, conference titles, and stuff like that, but keeping it on the day-to-day really helped where I didn't have to look at anything else, like record-setting."

That day-to-day focus also became a survival mechanism as much as a motivational one. While Ludwick was busy building his legacy in the new Creighton program, he was also managing injuries sustained by years of competition. From issues with his Achilles and knees to a labrum injury that he competed through in the 2025 season at Creighton, the sport had begun to leave its mark.

For Ludwick, though, those injuries were the price paid for the mechanics of a successful throw.

"The technique can be painful physically, especially if you do it really, really well, which is kind of an oxymoron," explained Ludwick. "So I'm just telling myself to buy into every single rep, every single throw, regardless of if there's a little bit of pain involved. It kind of beats down after a little while, but seeing the progress that I'm making, seeing the javelin fly out of my hand, is all the reward that I need to keep doing it."

Almost two years later with the Bluejay program, that reward has manifested in a historic sweep of accolades for the graduate. From winning the 101st Kansas Relays and being honored as All-BIG EAST, to becoming just the second Creighton track athlete to qualify for the postseason in 2025, Ludwick has checked many of the competitive boxes he set out to hit.

But as his story as a Bluejay is being written, it isn't the hardware that Ludwick will carry away with him when his time in the Creighton uniform is over.

"Coming to Creighton, you're going to get a lot of lifelong friends from that team … and you'll get a coach who, at one point, didn't know anything about javelin and now he's done constant research and observations within javelin to learn as much as he possibly can to prepare every javelin thrower that commits here to the next level," said Ludwick. "Knowing those two things was enough for me."

Now, as the program he helped build looks toward a future he helped make possible, Ludwick is also mapping out his own. While his primary goal is to complete his doctorate in physical therapy, Ludwick isn't ready to let go of javelin yet, even if it looks a little bit different.

"The best of both worlds is to rehab athletes who have javelin injuries or throw javelin in some capacity," expressed Ludwick. "We'll see if that happens. If not, I'll get my javelin fill by coaching and volunteering and helping when I can."

For years to come, the Creighton record books will remember Ludwick as the first javelin thrower in Creighton history, but he will remember the kept promises and the quiet moments of gratitude that anchored his time in the white and blue. The Kansas native came to Omaha looking for a supportive team and coach, and two years later, he leaves having found a home in both.

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