June 15, 2021
The youngest of three Dahlberg siblings, Declan Dahlberg watched his older brother and sister grow up as three sport athletes at MPA. When he got his turn in blue and white, he made the most of it. A cross country running, Nordic skiing and track and field athlete, Dahlberg’s name dots the record books in each sport.
In cross country running, Dahlberg earned IMAC all-conference in each of his four years, all-state in three of those years, and was involved in the two closest finishes in MSHSL cross country history. As a junior, Dahlberg narrowly edged out Matt Steiger of La Crescent by two tenths of a second to win the state championship, and as a senior, he finished second to Steiger by less than one one-hundredth of a second, despite running his personal best and the second fastest 5K in MPA history, 15:44.8. He was named team MVP as a sophomore, junior and senior and goes down as one of MPA’s most accomplished cross country runners of all-time.
“My favorite MPA athletics memories were winning the state cross country title my junior year, as well as qualifying as a team the next year,” says Dahlberg. “Even in college, we all still talk about how much fun the state cross country meet is, and how much we all enjoyed the experience of being in that environment.”
In Nordic skiing, Dahlberg was an IMAC all-conference honoree, and state qualifier in each of his four years, finishing as high as 26th to earn all-state honors in 2018.
On the track, Dahlberg focused on the 1600m and 3200m, but excelled across events, earning spots on MPA’s top ten all-time list in the 800m (2:02.30), 1600m (4:23.11), 3200m (9:23.77), and long jump (19’6), as well as in the 4x800m, 4x1600m, 1600m medley, and long jump relays. He earned numerous IMAC all-conference honors and team MVPs, as well as six all-state awards, winning the state championship in the 1600m in 2017, and placing second in the 3200m in both 2017 and 2018.
“MPA helped me a lot In preparing for college. Specifically with respect to competing in college, the most important thing is performing well in the classroom, managing stress, and staying healthy,” says Dahlberg, who earned 25 varsity letters in high school. “Academically, I felt very comfortable with the switch to higher levels of classes because of MPA, and athletically, although we are a small school, I was in a very strong place to make the transition to Division I athletics from the excellent coaching and training I did at MPA.”
Highly recruited by a number of different colleges, Dahlberg chose to continue his track and field career at the University of Minnesota. Even through the challenges of competing against some of the best runners in the country at every meet and having to work through injuries, Dahlberg has accomplished a lot in his first three years competing for the Gophers. He competed in the Big Ten cross country championship in 2020, finishing 84th. On the track, he earned a new personal best in the mile, running 4:11, and was named a recipient of the track and field and cross country program’s Coaches Award.
Dahlberg, who spent one summer as an engineering intern at Orthocare Innovations designing, prototyping, and testing prosthetics, was also a Big Ten Conference distinguished scholar twice and an academic all-Big Ten honoree three times. He will graduate with a degree in biomedical engineering, with emphasis in cell and tissue engineering, in spring 2022 and then apply to medical schools.
