Completed Event: Cross Country versus Cyclone Preview on August 29, 2025 , , Men: 1st, Women: 1st
Final
Cross Country
Cyclone Preview
Men: 1st, Women: 1st
Iowa State University Athletics
Cale Wallace Elevated to Women’s Cross Country Associate Head Coach
08.20.2024 | Cross Country, Track and Field
AMES, Iowa – Iowa State cross country assistant coach Cale Wallace has been named the associate head coach for women's cross country, director of track and field and cross country Jeremy Sudbury announced Monday. Wallace will remain an assistant coach for the Cyclone track and field programs as well.
"Coach Wallace has done a phenomenal job in transforming our men's and women's programs the past three years through his recruiting, coaching and ability to connect with our student-athletes," said Sudbury. "His work ethic and emphasis on maximizing the student-athlete experience will see our women's distance group continue to excel and thrive amongst the nation's best."
Wallace will continue to build with the Cyclone women, who finished in the top-25 at the 2023 NCAA Cross Country Championships and return a talented young core, including their top individual finisher at the NCAA Championships in Maelle Porcher.
Wallace just wrapped his third season as an assistant coach for ISU, the program's most successful complete year by both genders in cross country, indoor and outdoor track and field. The Cyclone women enter the 2024-25 school year coming off a 36th-place team finish at the 2024 NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships, the best outdoor finish since 2017. The Cyclone men also posted a top-20 team finish at the NCAA Outdoor Track Championships, their highest outdoor finish since 1996. Wallace also assisted the Iowa State men's cross country teams to two top-five team finishes in the past three seasons at national championship meets, including the program's runner-up finish in 2021.
"I am incredibly excited to take on this new role within the Iowa State Cross Country and Track program," said Wallace. "There are a lot of talented young women on this team, and I cannot wait to begin working with them to bring Iowa State Women's Cross Country to the top of the NCAA."
In track and field, Wallace led steeplechasers to put Iowa State in the national spotlight as the lone program in the nation to have a top-three finisher in both the men's and women's steeplechase at NCAA Championships in 2024. Janette Schraft (9:34.82) and Gable Sieperda (8:25.92), both native Iowans, downed their school records yet again while hitting the automatic U.S. Olympic Trials standard as they took bronze. Schraft cut 23 seconds off her own record first set in 2023 as she became an all-time Top 25-ranked collegiate performer while Sieperda downed ISU legend Wesley Kiptoo's steeple record earlier in the season.
In 2023, Wallace helped lead Schraft to earn the first steeplechase All-America honor in ISU women's track and field history while Schraft also became the first to break 10 minutes in the event.
Wallace spent two seasons as a volunteer assistant at his alma mater, Arkansas, before spending two seasons as an assistant coach at North Dakota. In cross country, UND finished the 2020-21 season in third on the men's side and second for the women at the Summit League Championships, each program's highest conference finish since entering Division I. His work with the Razorbacks helped Arkansas women win the 2019 NCAA Indoor and Outdoor Championships, while the men's and women's cross country programs both were the NCAA South Regional champions in 2018.
As a student-athlete at Arkansas, Wallace earned First Team All-America honors running the lead-off for UA's seventh-place distance medley relay squad at the NCAA Indoor Championships. A team captain in both cross country and track, he was an SEC silver medalist outdoors in the steeplechase in 2016 and qualified for the NCAA West Prelims in the steeple in 2016 and 2017.
He and his wife, Logan, have a son, Pierce.
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