It’s a brisk morning in Columbia, Missouri, five days before Thanksgiving. The Gans Creek cross-country course is still muddy from the previous day’s storm.
The BYU women have just placed second at the NCAA nationals, and the team’s freshman phenom Jane Hedengren finished second overall.
The team gathers for a pep talk from head coach Diljeet Taylor and a post-race prayer. They break their huddle and walk to the other side of the corral that separates the athletes from team personnel and media.
But Hedengren lingers with her coach.
The freshman from Provo had dominated the majority of the race — and much of the running world’s news cycle for the past year. Many expected her to be the first freshman to win the individual title in 40 years, but Alabama’s defending champion Doris Lemngole of Kenya pulled away from Hedengren to claim back-to-back titles.
Taylor, dressed in all black from beanie to sunglasses to boots, climbs onto the metal barricade, placing her feet on the bottom bar. Now taller than the 5-foot-11 Hedengren, she puts her hands on her freshman’s shoulders and looks her in the eyes.
“We’re gonna keep working. This is going to be the biggest blessing,” Taylor tells her.
Taylor’s message seems to work as Hedengren’s disappointment fades into a smile.
“The goal was to win a national championship individually for her, and that was what she raced to do, and that goal didn’t scare her,” Taylor told the Deseret News. “She went out and left everything out there to be able to do that, but when it didn’t come together on that day and it didn’t happen, I just reminded her that I was proud of her and that we just have to keep working. Like, this is going to end up fueling us in a way to be able to accomplish something even bigger.”
This weekend, Hedengren will look to claim her first NCAA title when she competes in the finals of the 5,000-meter (6:05 p.m. MDT Friday) and the 3,000-meter (5:10 p.m. MDT Saturday) at the NCAA Indoor Championship after stellar cross-country and indoor seasons. (The races will be streamed on ESPN+.)
How good has the BYU freshman been?
“There’s no one comparable to her in my mind,” NBC analyst and two-time Olympian Kara Goucher told the Deseret News. “She’s just head and shoulders above anything I’ve ever seen before.”
Otherworldly achievements and expectations
Taylor coined a new term to describe her freshman phenom: a “Jane-rational talent.”
It’s a combination of factors that make Hedengren special, Taylor said.
“Just with her maturity, her work ethic, her natural God-given gift, her humility, her desire to always want to improve and work hard to get better — you just put all of that stuff together and you end up with something we rarely get to see,” the coach said.
Goucher, a former NCAA cross-country champion, tried to explain Hedengren’s dominance to her NBC colleagues in a group chat, and the only comparison that Goucher could think of was eight-time Olympic gold medalist Usain Bolt.
“There have been a lot of high school phenoms, and then they get a little bit better, but maybe they’re not on a trajectory that everyone has hoped for them,” Goucher said. “And so I was trying to think of someone who truly lived up to the hype. So then I did, I compared her to (Usain) Bolt.”
Goucher admitted that sprinters would have a bone to pick with that — and acknowledged that Hedengren has yet to compete in or win at an Olympics.
But she thinks the comparison is still appropriate.
“I just think how good she is at such a young age and the fact that she just keeps improving,” Goucher said. “I just see her trajectory is just incredible.”
Hedengren, who was not made available for an interview, captured the running world’s attention while in high school, especially her senior year at Provo’s Timpview High School.
In her final cross-country season at Timpview, Hedengren won the 2024 Nike Cross Nationals, and her time of 16:32.7 broke Katelyn Tuohy’s course record by five seconds.
Hedengren claimed nine national high school track records. Six of those were outdoor records — 1,600-meter, mile, 3,000-meter, 3,200-meter, 2-mile and 5,000-meter — and three were indoor records — 1,500-meter, mile and 5,000-meter.
“I think she has all the components it takes to really be the best in the world.”
— Kara Goucher
Then in July, Hedengren found herself on a stage with NFL quarterback Matthew Stafford, four-time Olympic gold medalist Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone and 10 other high school athletes at the 2025 ESPY Awards.
There, McLaughlin-Levrone announced Hedengren as the female Gatorade Player of the Year, an honor McLaughlin-Levrone had won twice.
“I think, coming into this year, there’s a lot more that happened than I initially had anticipated,” Hedengren told the Deseret News the morning after her ESPY win. “I was just really grateful that I was able to stay healthy and work hard and enjoy the process and kind of see what was capable for this year.”
Dominating the NCAA
Hedengren has continued her dominance as a freshman at BYU in cross-country and indoor track, and she’s doing it all after having cut back on her training, according to Taylor.
“That’s also a good example for so many others that more is not necessarily better,” Taylor said. “Sometimes less is actually more, and there’s different ways that you can be successful in the sport.”
Hedengren won her first three cross-country races as a collegian — the national championship was her fourth race. She set a course record in her first race at the Pre-National invitational (18:42.30), shattering the previous record by 25 seconds, and followed that up with a Big 12 record at the Big 12 championship, which BYU won.
She became the first freshman to win the Big 12 women’s cross-country runner of the year and the first BYU runner to win both women’s runner and newcomer of the year.
Two weeks after cross-country nationals at the Sharon Colyear-Danville Season Opener in Boston, the world witnessed the “bounce back” that Taylor has enjoyed seeing from Hedengren.
There, Hedengren became the first collegian to run a sub 14:50 5,000-meter, setting a new NCAA record. Her time of 14:44.79 made her the second-fastest American indoors in the distance.
“That’s the kind of woman we are getting to witness, which is really special for not just Jane and not just our program, but really for all younger women in sport,” Taylor said. “It’s super inspirational to have someone who’s relentlessly chasing their dreams and raising the ceiling for so many others that are going to come behind her.”
Hedengren followed that up with the fastest 3,000-meter run by an American collegian (8:34.98). It’s the second-fastest time in the NCAA behind Lemngole (8:31.39). Hedengren later claimed the Big 12 title in the distance.
Hedengren also ran the third-fastest mile in the NCAA behind teammate Riley Chamberlain, who now holds the record.
“There’s nothing that I’m not impressed with, honestly, and I’m just excited for her because I don’t think she’s anywhere near her limit yet,” Goucher said. “Everything she does has just been incredible.”
Hedengren started the indoor season on the preseason watch list for The Bowerman, the most prestigious award for collegiate track and field athletes, and has remained on the watch list through its first two updates.
“It’s really easy at this age when you’ve got all of this success for it to change you, and she’s not using her success to change herself,” Taylor said. “She’s using it to change others, and that, again, is a very rare gift of a super high-level elite athlete.”
Even with all of Hedengren’s accomplishments, Taylor said she is most impressed with her freshman’s “ability to handle the pressure at such a young age.”
And there’s a lot of pressure. Hedengren’s success has attracted plenty of external noise and expectations, and though they’re aware of it, Taylor said, they don’t pay it any attention.
Instead, Taylor works to minimize that noise for Hedengren and ensure “that the voice she hears the most is the one inside her own head.”
‘A fire burning there to be great’
When Hedengren crossed the finish line in second place at cross-country nationals, disappointment filled her eyes as she waited for teammate Riley Chamberlain to cross the line nine seconds behind her in fourth.
“It didn’t last long, but there was some immediate disappointment, and that was her reaction right after the race was over,” Taylor said. “I think what it did is it reminded her how much she loves this and how much she wants it.”
Hedengren’s disappointment was a good thing, according to Goucher.
“It just showed like, no, she really, really wants to be great,” Goucher said. “Anybody else would have been thrilled with, as a true freshman, getting second at the national championship, breaking all those course records, and then the only person who beats you all year is someone who just got fifth at the World Championship.”
Goucher liked the spark Hedengren showed, adding that “I don’t think she’s ever going to be satisfied with anything but the best that she can be.
“When she’s racing, she doesn’t show a lot of emotion or pain. In fact, it’s always deceiving how fast she’s going because she doesn’t look like she’s running that hard. But the way she races so aggressively and kind of fearlessly, you can just tell that there’s a fire burning there to be great.”
Goucher has been following Hedengren for a couple of years now, she said, and had the opportunity to meet her at the Brooks PR Invitational, where Hedengren shattered the national high school 2-mile record Goucher had previously set.
“I think her future holds many World Championship teams and Olympic teams. I think she is the kind of athlete that can medal and can consistently medal.”
— Kara Goucher
Hedengren was equally impressive off the track in her interactions with Goucher and Goucher’s 14-year-old son, Colton.
“What really impressed me was that she went up to my son, and she was like, ‘Oh, are you Colton?’” Goucher said. “She knew him from Instagram, and then she was so nice to him and they got their photo together. And yeah, it was just like, ‘Wow, what a class act,’ you know? She did not make it about herself. She made it about everybody else.”
What Goucher witnessed is one of the two sides that Taylor said Hedengren has: the “humble and kind” version that exists off the track, and the “killer on the track.”
“The more you get to know her, the more you realize, oh wow, she really is just very humble and kind, but yet relentless when she’s an athlete racing,” Taylor said. “So there’s kind of these two personalities, and it’s really nice to see because the great ones — the generational great athletes — can show that those two types of personalities can coexist, right? You can be super graceful off of the track and be a killer on the track.”
What the future holds for Jane Hedengren
When the Deseret News spoke to Taylor in late December, she said there have been no goals set for Hedengren’s future for when she inevitably turns pro, emphasizing she’s just a freshman.
“We just want to be where our feet are,” Taylor said.
But if you ask Goucher, she already sees Hedengren on “many world championship teams and Olympic teams” in the future, adding that Hedengren “is the kind of athlete that can medal and can consistently medal.”
Goucher thinks Hedengren’s first worlds team could come as soon as next year’s World Athletics Championship in Beijing.
“Obviously, she’s very, very talented, but you don’t run the times she’s run and have the performances she’s had without a really, really good work ethic,” Goucher said. “And then I just think that we have seen that she wants it, based on her season and, like I said, that emotion we saw. So I think she has all the components it takes to really be the best in the world.”
But Goucher doesn’t want to put any pressure on Hedengren with her predictions for the freshman’s future.
“She just needs to stay on her path,” Goucher said. “I mean, she’s so young still, and so she just needs to continue. ... Maybe she needs to get a little stronger so she can work on her kick. But we’re talking about a 19-year-old, you know?”
Everything else will come with more time and experience, according to Goucher.
“Racing at the high level year after year, you just get better. She needs more experience because she hasn’t had it because she’s only 19. So I think it’s just like staying the path and continuing on. She’s gonna get everything she needs. She doesn’t need to do anything different.”
Whenever Hedengren does turn pro, “she’s going to make U.S. distance running better overall because she’s going to push it to a new level and people are going to want to keep up with her,” according to Goucher.
“I think having someone who really starts to break a lot of barriers, it raises everybody else up.”
