Leaving a legacy

As he heads from the small Iowa town of Mount Ayr for sunny Stanford, California, Ryce Reynolds leaves as a state champion, a state-record holder and an Iowa track and field icon.

He’s earned countless accolades and now is being named Creston Publishing Company’s South Central Iowa Male Outstanding Athlete of 2024.

The honor was created in 2013 as a joint venture by the Creston News Advertiser and Osceola Sentinel Tribune. Since then, a third Shaw Media newspaper, the Adair County Free Press, has joined in the collaborative effort to honor the region’s outstanding graduating male and female senior athletes.

The other four finalists this year in a strong field of contenders from the class of 2024 are Austin Evans of Creston, Brandon Briley of Creston, Donald Bashor of Lenox and Cael Turner of Creston. There are nine area high schools covered regularly by the three participating newspapers.

His passion for the sport has humble beginnings. It started with an elementary track and field day. “I always remember that was my favorite day of the year,” Reynolds said. “It’s just something about how competitive I am, I loved racing against my buddies. I thought getting the little blue ribbon the next day at school was awesome.”

In 2014, Reynolds was at the state track and field meet when Mount Ayr won the Class 1A team title.

“Kyle Dolecheck and Noah Larsen, those were some big names I remember watching at state track,” Reynolds said. “It was super exciting. When I was young and I loved track, I remember thinking those guys were awesome.”

Dolecheck, a 2016 graduate, brought home six gold medals in his track and field career. He broke a 45-year school record in the 400m dash with a :49.35. He was the first Raider to qualify for state in the maximum 16 events in his high school career.

It comes full-circle for Reynolds as he slowly began to reach and surpass the high standards Dolecheck set. As a sophomore, Reynolds won his first 400m state title in a time of :49.22, breaking the school record Dolecheck had set seven years prior. As a senior, Reynolds became the second Raider to qualify in 16 events through his career.

Early Career

Track and field has always been a passion for Reynolds. On homecoming week’s Hometown Hero dress-up day, Reynolds came to school with a state track champions T-shirt and a stopwatch around his neck. On his back was taped “Coach Elliott.”

“It dawned on me at that moment, I might want to stick around and see what the future holds for this young boy named Ryce Reynolds,” coach Brad Elliott said.

Reynolds ran track in seventh grade, competing in middle distance and hurdles. His eighth-grade track season was in the spring of 2020, canceled due to COVID.

When he finally reached the high school level, Elliott said he had a hard time figuring out what to do with Reynolds. “He could have been an outstanding high jumper,” Elliott said. “Nothing we threw at him really made him tired. Was he going to be a sprinter? We weren’t even thinking of hurdles at that point. The way he was built, I pegged him as middle distance. He was a just a slender skinny kid, I didn’t expect him to run 50 second flat.”

Reynolds ran the 400m and 800m races as a freshman, placing third at state in the 400 (:50.47), fifth in the 800 (1:58.74), third in the 4x800m relay (8:09.85) and fifth in the 4x400 (3:30.30).

“It made me realize I still have three years left to get stronger and grow,” Reynolds said. “Who knows what I can achieve? I realized track was something I could take seriously and maybe even run in college, and now here I am.”

When he was a freshman, it was seniors like Payton Weehler, Erik Trujillo, Bryce Shaha, Seth Shellman and Trae Ehlen who mentored him and showed him how to take the sport seriously.

“It shaped the type of athlete I am now,” Reynolds said. “It’s easy to see track as just another sport, but those guys helped me see it as something different, something special.”

On the way home from the state meet his freshman season, Reynolds mentioned to Elliott that he had ran hurdles in middle school.

“It kind of clicked for me because I was a freshman when his dad [Ryan Reynolds] was a senior, and he was a good 400 hurdler,” Elliott said. “From that point on, it was how to we get him in a good position for this hurdle race.”

There wasn’t a lot of practice before his first hurdles race as a sophomore.

“I broke the school record the first time I ran it,” Reynolds said. “I hadn’t been over more than two or three hurdles in practice so I didn’t know what to expect out of that race.”

The time was nearly four seconds slower than he would go on to run in the coming years, but it was a fantastic start for the young athlete.

“I looked back at my race, and each time I ran it from then on, I could pick a part of the race I could do better,” Reynolds said. “Slowly I got a feel for how to run it.”

The breakthrough came at the Drake Relays when Reynolds qualified in the 400m hurdles. He was running the race against senior Kole Becker of Lisbon, the reigning Class 1A champion in the event.

“We went in as coaches more excited just to be there,” Elliott said. “I think through Ryce’s career, he really had that attitude about every race, even to his senior year. He was just excited to be there. That allowed him to compete looser than most.”

Becker won the event by 0.01 seconds. It was the sophomore out of Mount Ayr who shocked everyone with a second-place finish in 53:50.

“I didn’t know it was really possible until that point,” Reynolds said. “I kind of from that point forward thought that could be the next big race to add to my arsenal. That was a pretty exciting moment.”

At the state meet, Reynolds won his first state gold medal on day one in the 400m dash.

On the second day, Reynolds lined up in lane eight of the fast heat in the 400m hurdles. He had the slowest qualifying time in his heat. But it was Reynolds, running blind, who won the race by nearly a full second.

“That really changed a lot of things inside of him,” Elliott said. “His confidence grew. He was in lane eight and won it decidedly, beating the guy who edged him at the finish line a month earlier. That was the statement that Ryce Reynolds is here; he’s arrived.”

Pressures Mounting

Coming home a two-time state champion as an underclassman, Reynolds knew he had just started to scratch the surface of what was possible.

His discipline and dedication to his craft is visible. “I would pull into the school at 7 a.m. and there’s RYCEL4 sitting in the parking lot,” basketball coach Bret Ruggles said of Reynolds’ license plate. “He’s at the track and it’s still dark out. People think, if I put the two hours of practice in, I’ll be really good. Ryce is out here showing the other 22 hours matter just as much as the two.”

While his sophomore year was about striving for greatness, his junior and senior years often felt like trying to hold on to his throne.

“It always felt like there was a target on my back,” Reynolds said. “If I didn’t perform, I was disappointing myself and others. I had conversations with people and they said they wouldn’t be disappointed, but there’s just a touch of that pressure you add to yourself. It’s a much different mindset heading into a season feeling like you have to uphold that status.”

Without a fall sport on the docket, Reynolds used the time to hone his basketball and track skills. He joined XLR8, a running program that allowed him to run off-season meets at places like the University of Arkansas and Northwest Missouri State.

The work paid off as his junior season, Reynolds did what no other Mount Ayr athlete is done. He won a running event at the Drake Relays, taking first in the 400m dash in a come-from-behind win.

“It was just like the men’s 400 at the Paris Olympics,” Elliott recounted. “He’s in sixth place coming off the curve.” Reynolds’ final kick propelled him into first place and cemented his legacy.

“Him winning a Drake title immortalized him in our minds,” Elliott said. “In our history, nobody’s ever orbited that high.”

It was a moment that stands out to Reynolds as one of the most special in his career. Another was winning the Pride of Iowa championships as a team that season.

“I was super happy for the whole team,” Reynolds said. “It’s a big accomplishment for us to pull that off with such a small roster compared to other conference schools.”

He went on to hold onto his 400m dash and 400m hurdle titles that season at the state championship, setting two state records, despite the challenge from an up-and-coming underclassman, Gabe Funk of Lenox.

“He pushed me to do my absolute best,” Reynolds said of Funk. “Coming from Southwest Iowa, it’s not very often you find two people at that level in the same event. For us to be able to push each other all season really helped push our times to be the best it could be. I’m eternally grateful to him.”

Funk placed third in the 400m hurdles that season, and the two would continue to battle throughout Reynolds’ final year.

The Final Chapter

“Ryce is such a perfectionist in everything he does,” Elliott said. “He wanted to write his final chapter the way he wanted to write it. Knowing all those things outside of your control are there, weighs on any athlete. I think that’s where you started to see his belief and faith and a lot of things he has outside the oval offered him comfort when he was stressed.”

One of the added duties of being a four-time state champion and Drake Relays champion was talking to his growing group of fans.

“It wasn’t easy for him,” Elliott said. “A lot of times there was probably a lot of it that was very distracting for him, but he never knew a stranger. It doesn’t matter if someone eight or 80 comes up to him, he’s going to smile and talk to them and find out where they are from.”

At the Drake Relays and the state championships, murmurs are heard through the crowd as Reynolds walks onto the oval. People from all over know the name Ryce Reynolds.

“He takes pride in his reputation. He takes pride in how his community looks through his actions. That’s what’s really rare,” Elliott said. “It’s a lot to put on a high school kid, but he realized that, he accepted that. He took that and handled it really well.”

Reynolds battled through Influenza his senior season, running race times slower than he wanted. He was also recovering from a postseason injury. He had moments where he didn’t meet his own high expectations.

After running a 1:54 800m during the indoor season, he struggled to come back and break 2:00. Despite not feeling his best, Reynolds knew how special it was to qualify for Drake in three individual events.

“Even though I wasn’t running my best times, I wanted to go out, be a part of it and experience it,” he said. “I ran a 1:58; it wasn’t my best race, but I had to put it in perspective. I could have looked at myself and my time and been disappointed. I could have felt I didn’t live up to expectations, but I put it in perspective. I had to tell myself, you’re coming back from being sick, you broke 2:00 that you wanted to break and this is your first race. Don’t let it affect your other races.”

Looking back, it’s not disappointment, regret or even anger he feels toward that day. It’s gratitude.

“I can look back and be grateful that I got to run those three separate events,” he said. “It takes a lot of mental strength to take a step back, pause and see the good side of it rather than the negative side.”

Through his three years competing at Drake in the 400m hurdles, he never won. In fact, he got second every year. The total between his time and first place over all three years is 0.36 seconds.

At state as a senior, Reynolds re-broke his own records in the 400m and 400m hurdles. He is the first athlete in Iowa history to win the 400 and 400 hurdles three consecutive years.

Reynolds and Funk hugged after the 400 hurdles, taking gold and silver in a Pride of Iowa display. Next season will be Funk’s turn to shine, and Reynolds can’t wait.

“I’m super excited to see what happens next season,” Reynolds said. “I’m excited for everything that happens his senior year. I’m excited if he decides to run track in college. I just think it makes it easy when your rivalry is someone who is just a nice, likable person.”

He also earned another relay win with teammates Jackson Ruggles, Tate Dugan and Preston Fleharty in the sprint medley relay. The year prior, he placed first in the distance medley relay with Fleharty, Jaydon Knight and Braydon Pierson.

“Being able to share that accomplishment with three other people is unmatched,” Reynolds said of the relay wins. “An individual championship is amazing, but being able to share it with three other guys takes it to the next level. It validates all the work you did in the spring. It’s so cool.”

Reynolds hopes his performance over the past four years shows you don’t have to be from a big school to be successful.

“I feel like a lot of 1A schools can look at me and think, okay, I don’t have to always have the best facilities or the state’s top coaching or a weight lift program. I don’t have to do all that stuff,” Reynolds said. “Yes, it helps, but it’s possible to get there. It comes from the effort that you put in and the work you put in on the off season and the love and support of friends and family. Being a 1A kid at those big meets is really special to me. You feel extra pride there.”

He leaves the program with 15 state medals, eight state championships, eight school records, two state records and a Drake Relays title.

“In future conversations, I can imagine people saying, ‘Mount Ayr? Oh, that’s where Ryce Reynolds is from,’” Elliott said.

Basketball

Though Reynolds and anyone around him would say that track was his number one passion in life, he was also an integral part of the Mount Ayr basketball team.

“We talk about how everyone wants to be a doctor or a lawyer, but when they get up, they go out and get a donut,” Ruggles said. “That guy starts everyone’s day. Ryce was that guy for us. He wasn’t the most prolific scorer, but he did the hard things for us. Not once did he complain or even begrudgingly go to practice.”

Reynolds was brought off the bench to play varsity minutes as a freshman and began starting as a sophomore.

“Defensively, he was the best player on our team,” Ruggles said. “He was three-time honorable mention all conference; he did all the hard things for us. His rebounds, defensive effort, hustle, overall tempo and play — he did everything to the best of his abilities and he didn’t always get credit for it. He understood that, but he also understood his success contributed to our success.”

Reynolds was a force defensively, utilizing his speed to stop fast breaks and keeping an entire half of the court covered on his own.

“I’ve never had a player who defensively could take one side of the floor and make others play around him,” Ruggles said. “I’ve had coaches come to me after and say we can’t do anything on this side of the floor because Ryce Reynolds is such a problem for us.”

Reynolds could have used the winter season as an opportunity to dedicate to track training, but he said that’s not the small school way.

“I always knew I was going to play,” he said. “Coming from a small school, you rely on the kids who like sports to go out for sports. I wanted to show my support for the basketball team and all those people who wouldn’t say track is their sport but they still went out. I wanted to reciprocate that. I loved my coaches, coach Ruggles, coach [Jeff] Levine, coach [Jim] Murphy, they are all amazing people. I know I talk a lot about coach Elliott, but those three have equally shaped me into who I am today. They deserve just as much praise. I wanted to stick out with basketball because I enjoyed it. I am definitely sad to kind of leave that part behind me.”

Ruggles said coaches sell the kids on helping each other by going out for multiple sports. “He could have sold out and went to track, and everyone would have understood,” Ruggles said. “But there are people on our team he needs and we need him. If you look at the substate runs, conference championships we’ve had over the last four years, Ryce is a huge name in the production of that. He’s got to look at it and see, I may not be the most talented in the world, but their success comes from my ability to do the hard things.”

Future

After scoping out a variety of options, Reynolds decided on continuing his education and track career at Stanford University. He will compete in indoor and outdoor track as a mid-distance runner and hurdler.

“In education and in coaching, you hope that good things will happen to good people,” Ruggles said. “Ryce is a great one, and I hope great things happen for him.”

Reynolds plans to pursue a career in the medical field as he’s always been interested in anatomy, biology and other sciences.

He has already started a training regimen through Stanford to prepare for his freshman season. He’s left his mark at the high school level, and now it’s time to set the titles aside and see where he stacks up in the collegiate field.

“I hope people see that what Ryce did was because of the work he did and the choices he made, not what he was born with,” Elliott said. “It’s not fair to say Ryce was just talented and gifted. He was incredibly serious about the choices he made and the work he put in.”

ACCOLADES

School Records:

200m

400m

400mH

800m

4x100m

4x800m

Sprint Medley

Distance Medley

Recognitions:

2024 IATC State Indoor Performer of the Meet Senior

IATC Academic All-State

3/3-time POI Academic All-Conference

IHSAA Student-Athlete of the Month (May 2023)

2024 Gatorade Player of the Year

Conference Championships:

2021: 400m, 4x400m

2022: 400m, 400mH

2023: 100m, 200m, 400m, 400mH

2024: 400m, 400mH, Sprint Medley, 4x400m

IATC Indoor State Championships:

2022: 400m

2023: 400m, 4x400m

2024: 200m, 400m, 4x400m

Drake Relays:

2022: 400m (3rd), 400mH (2nd)

2023: 400m (1st), 400mH (2nd)

2024: 400m (5th), 400mH (2nd), 800m (14th)

State Track:

2021: 400m (3rd), 4x800 (3rd) 4x400 (5th), 800 (5th).

2022: 400m (1st), 400mH (1st), Sprint Medley (4th), 4x400 (DNP).

2023: 400m (1st, Class 1A state record), 400mH (1st, Class 1A state record), Distance Medley (1st), Sprint Medley (2nd).

2024: 400m (1st, Class 1A state record), 400mH (1st, Class 1A state record), Sprint Medley (1st), 200m (2nd)