The collegiate indoor track & field career is complete for Jefferson’s Carter Morton, the sixth year University of Northern Iowa senior, and what a career it was! He earned first team NCAA Division I All-American honors over the weekend in the heptathlon at Fayetteville, AK by finishing in sixth place with 6,003 points. He was a first team All-American in 2025 when he finished in fifth place with 5,852 points. Morton holds numerous UNI records, including being the first at the school to top 6,000 points twice in the heptathlon. His career best of 6,054 points was in December 2025 at the U. of Iowa. He’s just the eleventh in school history to earn All-American honors more than once, and he still has the 2026 outdoor season to go.

The 2020 Greene County High School graduate was the Male Ram of the Year as a high school senior, but there was no senior track & field season in 2020 due to the Pandemic. He placed in the Class 2A State Meet as a junior in the high jump and 110 meter high hurdles.

Recruited by UNI in those two disciplines, he asked the Panthers’ coaching staff if he could try the multi-events, which are the seven event heptathlon indoors and the 10-even decathlon outdoors. The short hurdles races and the high jump are included in both the heptathlon and decathlon, and Morton  had done some sprinting in high school, but he had to learn all the other events from scratch. Did he ever learn, plus overcoming ankle tendon surgery and the Pandemic along the way.

Carter is the son of Chad and Deb Morton of Jefferson.