Michigan State University Athletics
Dylan Terryberry: Multi-Talented and Multi-Faceted Spartan Star
3/24/2026 1:19:00 PM | Track and Field
By Chris Warren For msuspartans.com
Michigan State track and field athlete Dylan Terryberry never anticipated that he would still be doing track and field at the collegiate level, and certainly didn't think he would be competing in both the heptathlon and decathlon.
Not only has he managed to balance life as a collegiate athlete competing in 10 events, but he also has started a social media career that he never expected to take off as quickly as it has.
After starting out his freshman year posting TikToks about what it was like to be a student at MSU, Terryberry slowly began to make social media content about what it's like to be a collegiate athlete balancing many different events at the same time. So far he has 40,000 followers on Instagram, over 200,000 on YouTube and more than 130 NIL brand deals with companies such as Nike and Brooks. You can follow him on all his platforms under the social media handle @dtloading.
"NIL, brand partnerships, and ad revenue on YouTube and TikTok have been really good for me," Terryberry said. "Coming in as a walk-on I had a good amount of student debt. I was taking out loans, and I wasn't on scholarship at the time. Now I'm at a point where I don't really have to worry about that anymore."
Terryberry, a graduate student from Onsted, Michigan, is currently in his final year of eligibility.
He has had a strong start to his final indoor season, earning a personal best 5,406 points in the heptathlon at the PNC Lenny Lyles Invitational in Louisville, Kentucky. He followed up that performance with another strong heptathlon at the Big Ten Indoor Championships, earning 5,334 points and finishing in seventh place.
Before coming to MSU he didn't know what the heptathlon and decathlon were. It wasn't even until his senior year of high school that he realized he was interested in doing track and field at the collegiate level.
"I started basically just to get faster for football and basketball," Terryberry said. "I never really did it because I liked track. As I started to get better, I started to focus on it more and then I had the opportunity to walk on at Michigan State following my senior year of high school."
He made his debut for the Spartans as a freshman during the 2022 outdoor season, focusing on two main events, javelin and long jump. Then during his sophomore season he officially became a scholarship athlete, where he started competing in the heptathlon during the indoor season and the decathlon during the outdoor season.
"When I came on my visit to Michigan State, that was really the first time I'd ever really thought of doing the decathlon or heptathlon," Terryberry said. "It didn't really make sense to me at the time but it was something the coach here at Michigan State told me he thought I'd be good at just because of my background in multiple sports."
Adding all these new events into his training was a big adjustment for Terryberry, with pole vault in particular taking a while for him to get the hang of. The throwing events that he had to learn including shot put, discus, and javelin came to him more naturally, with his football background making the transition to these events easier.
Fitting 10 events into a week of training is not easy and MSU jumping coach Tim Nickas has helped create a balanced training routine for Terryberry.
"If we're efficient in our training, that limits how much volume he has, which helps him stay healthier and keeps that balance just a little bit more manageable," Nickas said. "We usually train two more challenging days back to back and then have an easier day, and that's a routine and system he's used to and comfortable with."
As the indoor season wraps up and Terryberry begins to approach his final outdoor season, he already has a few goals in mind of what he wants to accomplish to conclude his collegiate track and field career.
"Going into my last outdoor season I am hoping to place higher than last year at the Big Ten Championships in the decathlon, hopefully top five," Terryberry said. "I am also looking to go to regionals for the javelin, which I was close to last year. The one main goal I have is to qualify for nationals for the decathlon. It's been my goal basically my whole career, and I think I am in good shape to eventually get there."
As he gets closer to his last collegiate track meet, Terryberry has begun focusing on his career aspirations of working in the NIL department for a university. He earned his bachelor's degree in economics this past spring and is pursuing a master's degree in marketing research. With his continued social media success and follower counts consistently rising, Terryberry doesn't want to give up his social media career and even wants to expand on it to help other athletes grow their own brands.
"I definitely don't want to give up on the social media stuff because it's been really good, and continues to be good, but I want to look into working in the NIL space after I graduate," Terryberry said. "I want to help other college athletes build their brands by either working for a university or helping college athletes on my own."
Having experienced the challenges of being a collegiate athlete trying to get NIL deals, Terryberry has a passion for helping other collegiate athletes try to do the same. Nickas has taken notice of the passion Terryberry possesses for everything he does in life.
"I feel like I've learned just as much from him as I'm sure he has learned from me so far," Nickas said. "It's great to see someone that is so passionate about what he does and as his life starts to develop and change, whether track remains a part of his life or eventually drifts away, I want to see him continue to find things that he is really passionate about."
Players Mentioned
