Greeley’s Jesse Hayward qualifies for NCAA regional competition in his senior year at UNC

University of Northern Colorado’s Jesse Hayward sprints while practicing at Nottingham Field in Greeley for the upcoming NCAA regional meet May 22-25 at the University of Arkansas on Friday, May 17, 2024. Hayward is a former student of Frontier Academy. (Jim Rydbom/photographer)

An operating room could soon replace a running track as Jesse Hayward’s favorite place. The change concerns Heyward’s impending transition from runner and college athlete to young man and graduate student pursuing his professional goals and life’s work.

A 23-year-old Greeley resident, Frontier Academy alumnus and recent University of Northern Colorado graduate, Hayward will soon begin working toward a career in medicine. The first step will be to gather applications for medical school in 2025. Hayward liked the operating room environment during a job shadowing experience. He wants to become an anesthesiologist.

First, Hayward still has work to do in his other favorite place: on the track. In his final collegiate season, Hayward is one of four UNC athletes to qualify for an NCAA regional competition later this month. Hayward will run the 800 meters at the NCAA West first-round meet May 22-25 at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville.

“Track is kind of the part of me that is you’re young, you’re in college, you’re doing what you love and what you love,” Hayward said. “I also love being in the operating room and for me it kind of represents my career path and the next step I’m going to take.”

Joining Heyward in Arkansas will be UNC sprinter Jerome Campbell (110-meter hurdles), middle-distance runner Regina Mpigachai (800) and Alexia Austin (100-meter hurdles).

An NCAA East first-round meet will take place the same days at the University of Kentucky in Lexington. The top 48 athletes from the individual events qualified for each of the first round competitions. The top 24 teams from each relay qualified to compete in the first round.

Qualified athletes from the Arkansas and Kentucky venues will advance to the NCAA Division I Outdoor Track and Field Championships June 5-8 at the University of Oregon’s famed Hayward Field. Oregon’s Hayward Field is not related to Jesse, who wore a college T-shirt during a recent practice.

Campbell and Mpigachai are trying to meet beyond the NCAAs. Campbell, originally from Jamaica, and Mpigachai, from Tanzania, are training to be part of their home countries’ Olympic teams that will compete in Paris this summer.

Hayward is in a different situation with his spot at the NCAA meet. He is probably in the last races of his life, in the biggest competition of his life. He qualified for the West’s first-round meet with the 33rd-fastest time in the 800 earlier this year, according to data from the NCAA Division I Athletics Committee. Hayward recorded a UNC program best time of 1 minute, 48.90 seconds at an invitational at the University of Florida in April.

You can learn more about the race in Florida on Hayward’s YouTube channel, youtube.com/@skohayward5.

Making it to the NCAA first-round meet is the culmination of five years of hard work since Hayward arrived at UNC as a skinny freshman and walk-on athlete. Hayward tried to advance to the first round last year, but he didn’t make it.

He said qualifying this year was rewarding and “extremely meaningful,” knowing he was among the top 100 in the United States in his event.

UNC coach Wayne Angel said Hayward was the first 800-meter runner in the program’s Division I era to advance to the NCAA first round. Angel said Hayward could “absolutely” run faster than his Arkansas qualifying time of 1:48.90. Hayward will race with some of the best in the country next week and “the competition keeps you going,” the coach said.

When Hayward joined the program, he was running the 800 in about 1 minute and 55 seconds. Angel said the difference was big between 1:55 and 1:48.9, and Hayward is now one of the best in the Big Sky Conference in that event.

Hayward finished fifth in the 800 at the Big Sky Conference outdoor meet last weekend with a time of 1:50.17.

“He’s come a long way from a small local high school,” Angel said. “He is tall.”

The 800 meters is a middle-distance event, known as an extended sprint. The 800 requires runners to pace themselves like a distance race. The event also requires riders to pour it into a sprint at certain points. These elements of the 800 made the distance an attractive event for Hayward, who came to college thinking he was going to become a distance runner.

Hayward set a Frontier Academy race record in the 5K cross country and 800M track as an individual runner. Hayward also ran cross country at UNC. In October, he set a school record by two seconds with a time of 24:35 on an 8-kilometer course.

Hayward started running in middle school. He became more serious about sports early in high school when he transferred from Resurrection Christian in Loveland to Frontier Academy, a Greeley-Evans District 6 charter school with an excellent distance learning program.

Running for Frontier coach Brett Shanklin helped Hayward see that running was a sport in which he could compete and succeed.

“I never took it seriously until halfway through high school,” he said. “Once that kind of success happens, you’re like, ‘OK, I can make a name for myself in this field, really work at it and try to get into college.’

Hayward’s father, Reid, is a professor of sport and exercise science at UNC and director of the Cancer Rehabilitation Institute on campus. Jesse’s mother, Carrie, also works for the clinic. Her sister, Faith, is a basketball player and senior at Dayspring Academy in Greeley.

When Hayward arrived at UNC and attended the Big Sky Conference meet, where Northern Arizona dominates the distance, he realized the 800 track race was the best event for him.

“I found the 800m to kind of be my sweet spot where I can make a name for myself in the 800m and play to my strengths at the same time,” he said. “You have to be really talented both aerobically and anaerobically to make a name for yourself in the 800m and really reach your potential. That’s how I see the 800.”

Aerobic exercise uses large muscle groups and includes running or long-distance endurance, according to the American College of Sports Medicine. Anaerobic exercise is an intense physical activity over a short duration such as sprinting, says the ACSM.

Angel said Hayward is effective in the 800 because he understands pacing in an event that requires a distance and sprint mentality.

“That’s the key to being an exceptional 800-meter runner,” the coach said. “He understands where he needs to be at the 200, the 400, the 600 (meter marks), and then he has the speed. He can calm down. He knows where he needs to be, everything he needs to be effective.

Angel said Hayward is very good at handling the third 200-meter segment of the 800, which is the “deciding” point of the race. At this stage, runners want to pick up the pace, get ahead and then gain the advantage in the last 200 meters when the other runners are tired.

Hayward’s goal next week in Arkansas is to make the second day of racing, all the way to the round of 16. Angel said Hayward could advance to Day 2 with a time of 1:47. They are aiming for a time of 1:46.

“The goal is to reach the round of 16. Then anything can happen,” Angel said, adding that Hayward is a “tough” athlete. “Very humble and very intelligent runner. His work ethic is second to none.