Newly crowned NCAA discus champion Nik Arrhenius is headed back to the land of his heritage today. He's jetting to Stockholm, Sweden, where his father Anders Arrhenius left 35 years ago to earn All-America honors in the shot put at BYU.
Nik grew up in Utah Valley and attended Mountain View High. The father/son duo will set up summer camp to help Nik compete for the Swedish national team and will participate in several national club championships and the European championships in Helsinki this summer. Nik, wearing the Swedish colors of his father, will compete on the same Stockholm sport team his father belonged to in the late '60s as a teen.
"Once a Swede, always a Swede," said Anders, who teaches English and Health at Spanish Fork High. Anders has kept his Swedish citizenship, although he's lived in the United States since he married Kristine Fowler, from Rose Park, who was on an LDS Church mission to Stockholm in the early '70s, where they first met.
That Nik won the NCAA title last Friday in Sacramento, Calif., is one of the proudest moments of Anders' athletic life.
"I don't brag about Nik. He is a humble, easygoing young man and people like him for who he is, but I couldn't be prouder of him and what he has accomplished and how he carries himself. He is a remarkable athlete who has done well," said his father.
Actually, Nik's story as a Cougar All-American began long before he was born. His father, Anders, became interested in BYU when trainer Marv Robertson put on a clinic in Stockholm in the early '70s.
Said Anders, "Marv was showing how to tape athletes, a new thing in Europe back then." Javelin thrower Raimo Pihl, who earned All-American honors at BYU in the decathlon, told Anders of BYU. "I had nothing else to do, so I came over to see what it was all about. The rest is history."
Anders officially earned one All-American citation for the shot put in 1975, but that was in the days when only the top three finishers were All-American. He was third once, fourth twice and fifth twice. "I should have been All-American five times, maybe six," he said.
Anders was easily recognizable on the Provo campus in the '70s with his blonde hair and a huge, monster barrel chest. Something about those Swedes and their strength. Anders had it and it came naturally.
"Everybody in my family has big chests. My grandfather was a big man, 6-foot-3 and 260 pounds, very big for those days. He was the anchor on the tug-of-war team that won the exhibition sport tug of war event in the 1912 Olympics in Stockholm.
That grandfather, Bror Arrhenius, was also an opera singer, a star baritone who toured Europe performing back in the day.
Anders and Nik are not related to the famous Swedish physicist and chemist Svante August Arrhenius, who advanced the theory of electrolytic dissociation, the greenhouse effect. "I get asked that a lot," said Anders. "But there were three Arrhenius families that settled in Sweden in the 1600s and that is another family, who I understand have now settled in California and have three with the Arrhenius name teaching at UCLA. I wish I had Svante's brains."
While Nik has the genes to compete on the national and world stage in two countries, it hasn't all come through blood. "He works hard and has a God-given gift for picking up techniques quick, in all sports," said Anders.
Before serving a mission, Nik broke the American high school record in the discus. His brother Leif, who has nearly completed a mission to Taiwan, broke the world record for 19-and-under in the 35-pound weight throw with a toss of 68 feet 9 inches.
Leif is expected to return to BYU and compete in several field events that could include the discus, hammer or javelin. "He's good in all of them but I'm not sure what he'll do right away because he's lost weight. He's been eating worms, cats and dogs and whatever else over there ... who knows when he'll get his weight back."
You can hear the pride in the voice of Anders, who left Stockholm as a celebrated athlete more than three decades ago and now sees his sons follow in his footsteps at his adopted home in Utah.
That Nik returns to Sweden and takes up his native country colors and has already met the Olympic qualifying standard in the discus, is a very big deal to this dad.
"I gave up throwing for about 10 years, "said Anders. "But when my four children began getting involved in sports, I introduced them to competing like I did and they loved it. We started competing in track meets all over the country when they were growing up and made them our family vacations."
This summer, these games could take Nik to the World Championships in Osaka, Japan, in August.
"There are a lot of people who have had a hand in Nik's success including his coach, L.J. Silvester. I taught him the basics, but he is the one who has picked it up. He's a dream to practice with because he is very dedicated," said Anders.
A father and a son, both All-Americans, winging their way to a far away home. Somehow it kind of fits, heading into this Father's Day weekend.
E-mail: dharmon@desnews.com