To become the fastest man in college is a very big deal. If you can run faster than everyone else in the NCAA, you are likely headed for a successful career as a professional sprinter. In 2008 Richard Thompson and Walter Dix both ran in the NCAA 100 meter dash final, and later became Olympic medalists in that event just a few weeks later. But the truth is that the 100 meter dash isn’t really the “fastest” event in college, that would be the 60 meter dash. Many people don’t pay attention to the indoor season, but it still matters. Grant Holloway and Christian Coleman both won that event at the NCAAs before going on to become World Champions outdoors later that same year. 

Right now the man who proved himself as the fastest in the nation is Kalen Walker of the University of Iowa. He opened his indoor season running 6.59 seconds which is likely fast enough to book his tickets for the NCAA meet right now. Kalen is not yet the favorite to win anything at the NCAAs. But his performance is such a big deal because his journey to the top of the leaderboards is very unexpected. The truth is that Kalen Walker is an underdog in every sense of the word. He was barely recruited out of high school, clawed his way out of junior college, and right now is the fastest man in all the NCAA.

How good was Kalen Walker in high school? 

At the high school level in Iowa, Kalen Walker started off playing football, basketball, and running track and field. He wasn’t bad on the football field, but was entirely unranked on major websites. He actually didn’t choose to focus on track until the end of his junior year. As as a senior he ran his first indoor races but that was in 2020, so there was no outdoor season for him to compete in. As a result nobody really knew how fast he could run yet as a recruit.

As a junior outdoors he never broke 10.9 in the 100 meter dash or 22.5 in the 200 meter dash. That’s 2 star recruit level on SCArecruiting.com which is good enough to get interest from some small conference D1 schools. But unfortunately for Kalen he was in Iowa. So many of the schools that would have appreciated him, never heard about him. The next time that he showed up on the track was at the junior college level.

Should you choose Junior College over Non-D1 Track and Field?

Many recruits believe it’s the best place to go when you don’t get recruited to Division 1. The idea is that if you run fast in JUCO you can simply transfer out to a big name D1 school. It’s not that easy because the fastest runners in JUCO would have dominated at the D1 level anyway. Kenny Bednarek ran for Indian Hills Community College and was so fast, that he skipped D1 entirely and became an Olympic medalist just a few years later. You can bet on yourself if you want to, but many JUCO sprinters, who went there to try and get recruited in the first place, never make it to D1 at all. So if you have D1 schools who are serious about you, even if they are not big names, you should probably take those offers seriously.

How did Kalen Walker get so fast in college? 

Just like Kenny Bednarek, Kalen Walker attended Indian Hills Community College to start his college career. He was only there for one season, but he did prove he was significantly faster than his junior year of high school. He ran 6.87 in the 60 meter dash, which was a big PR and ironically made the JUCO national championship meet both indoors and outdoors in the 200 meter dash. The reason why it’s unexpected because he has literally only run that event one time since that season.

After proving he was one of the better JUCO talents in the country, Kalen Walker turned up at the University of Iowa in the Big Ten Conference. The fact that he only did 1 year in JUCO is proof that he had to be D1 eligible the year before. In his first college race for the Hawkeyes he ran 6.69 seconds, which is almost 2 tenths of a second faster than his season best a year before! That’s four tenths away from anything he did in high school. In that one race Kalen Walker proved he was a legit sprinter. Even if he wasn’t a national championship threat. He actually won the Tyson Invitational which is a pretty big deal for college track in the 60 meter dash, and made the NCAA championships indoors in 2022. He didn’t make the final, so nobody really acknowledged he was there, but it was proof he was one of the nation’s best. 

From that point you could argue he has underachieved. He never qualified for the NCAAs again indoors or outdoors in 2023. But he kept dropping fast races, including a sub 21 second 200 meter dash, the one time he ran it. He also ran 10.1 seconds in the 100 meter dash. But entering the 2024 indoor season, Kalen ran a new PR in the 60 meter dash, of 6.59 seconds. At that moment he became the fastest man in college.

It is unclear what the future of Kalen Walker’s career will look like. But his journey is worth paying attention to. Kalen Walker was a high school recruit who had barely any D1 interest, and then had his senior season cancelled before it ever really began. He bet on himself in junior college and proved that he deserved a shot to run in D1 at its highest level. Then he cranked it up a notch to prove he was a legitimate threat, and now has a chance to compete for a national title. I don’t know if he will pull it off, but the movie script has already written itself. Kalen Walker is a true underdog story, and the fastest man in college right now.

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