With five NCAA titles and multiple Division 3 all-time marks, in addition to being an 18-time All-American, Wayt has not only matched, but surpassed success achieved by mother Heather three decades ago for Purple Raiders

By Mary Albl of DyeStat

Photos by Casey Kropka

When Kenadee Wayt came to Alliance, Ohio, and toured the University of Mount Union, Purple Raiders track and field head coach Kevin Lucas was convinced they weren’t getting the standout from Wheeling Central Catholic High in West Virginia.

“She was the quietest, most non-talkative person,” Lucas said. “She was actually difficult to recruit, because she didn’t talk a lot. I thought she didn’t like it. That's what I thought, but she ended up here at Mount Union, and the rest is history.”

While that’s the short version, it’s been a long and storied history for Wayt at Mount Union.

The graduate student-athlete’s mom, Heather (O’Shea) Wayt is a Mount Union Hall of Famer, winning two NCAA Division 3 outdoor titles in the 800 meters in 1994-95, and was also part of the national championship 4x400 relay in the latter season.

Wayt, though, has made her own history as one of the best Division 3 sprinters, with five national titles and is a current 18-time All-American. This spring she’s looking to add to her own legacy.

“There’s certainly a comfort level that her (Kenadee’s) mom had come here (Mount Union) and had a successful career, even though it was many years later,” Lucas said. “To have the success of her mom, and then surpass her mom’s legacy, is pretty awesome.”

Mount from the beginning

Wayt and her twin sister, Ireland, grew up around the track in Wheeling.

Heather has served as a high school track coach for 20-plus years, so as Wayt put it, since she could walk, she’s been running.

At Central Catholic she was one of the state’s top sprinters excelling in the 100, 200 and relays.

Also a competitive soccer player, scoring a school-record 111 goals, Wayt said she considered trying to balance both sports at the collegiate level, but felt a stronger pull toward track. And after some back-and-forth internal discourse, she felt that pull toward Mount Union.

“At first (knowing my mom went to Mount Union) it made me not want to go there because I didn't really want to do the same exact thing,” Wayt said. “Actually my high school track coach Eric Belancic also competed at Mount Union, so I was surrounded by Mount Union runners; it was fate to run there.”

Lucas explained Wayt came in with a pretty high ceiling as a sprinter.

With her training just focused on track, it’s been a steady progression each year. Her first season she finished second in the 60 (7.80) and 200 (26.06) at the All-Ohio Division 3 Indoor Track and Field Championships.

With the pandemic impacting scheduling and canceling NCAA indoor and outdoor championship meets, it wasn’t until the 2022 season when Wayt really took off and started to make a name for herself, not only in the conference, but nationally.

Wayt qualified for the NCAA Division 3 Indoor championships, placing sixth in the 200 (25.16), eighth in the 60 (7.70) as well as the 400 (59.26), and seventh in the 4x400 (3:53.58).

She followed that up outdoors by clocking 11.94 seconds in the 100, ran a then-personal-best 24.49 in the 200 and was part of the fourth-place 4x400 (3:43.88) at nationals.

“So training is very simple in terms of everything builds upon itself and she is the perfect example,” Lucas said. “She really bought into what we were doing training-wise and she is a coach’s dream when it comes to an athlete that literally does everything right. Does every aspect of the little things like rest, eating right, sleeping right, taking care of body, she does all of those things, and it’s more of the reason she’s excelled and she’s gotten better every year.”

Wayt said coming in, lifting more, and training more for sprinting, things slowly started to click for her.

“I think the program at Mount is one of the best in the country,” Wayt said. “The coaches just had a great plan for me, so I think I saw slow progress, but once it clicked and started seeing results that I’d never seen before.”

Shared success

Wayt won her first national indoor title last year, running 24.31 in the 200, the third-fastest time in Division 3 history, and a new school record. The first person she went to embrace after her victory was her national champion mother.

“To be able to share it, the same feeling that she did, is something I never thought would happen,” Wayt said.

With a national title in the 200, Lucas wanted to continue to develop Wayt’s talent in the longer sprints.

Despite not running the event too much as a prep competitor, Lucas said they noticed early on the 400 could be Wayt’s event, so catered her training into developing her into a really fast one-lap athlete.

“I think the thing that sets her apart is she's really good at buffering that lactic acid,” Lucas said. “We would throw workouts at her that we felt like should make her be bent over and really should get her pretty good, and she would handle them.

“We were having to evaluate the amount of volume and intensity we could throw at her, so that’s something as a coach that was a little challenging. She was doing some workouts that were pretty good indicators of someone that can win a national title in the 400 and 200.”

Lucas’ intuition was correct.

At the NCAA Division 3 Outdoor Championships, Wayt won national titles in the 400 (54.33) and 200 (23.95), and also claimed All-America honors as part of the third-place 4x400 and eighth-place 4x100 relays.

She finished the Division 3 outdoor season with the second-fastest 400 time (54.18) and No. 3 mark in the 200, and also tied her mom for the most NCAA titles in program history.

Wayt was named the United States Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association Division 3 Women’s Outdoor Track Athlete of the Year. This was all while graduating with a cumulative 4.0 GPA, plus a degree in biology and simultaneously beginning the PA program to pursue a Master’s in the Physician Assistant School.

“I think growing up, my parents always pushed me to do whatever I did, to make sure I did it to the best of my ability,” Wayt said. “Growing up I was super competitive with my twin sister but a healthy competition. We really feed off each other and want to become really good at what we do. (Ireland) is in medical school, I’m in the PA program and I think having a good support system and having someone to do everything with allows me to succeed in what I do.”

Reaching another level 

For as long as Lucas has been around – more than a decade as the women’s coach at Mount Union – the statistics of what Wayt has accomplished are mind-boggling.

During the winter, Wayt set the Division 3 indoor national 300 (39.33) and 500 (1:13.23) all-time marks and added two more national titles, capturing the 200 (24.10) and 400 (54.72), in addition to earning runner-up honors in the 60 (7.55).

Wayt’s 200 time was the second-fastest in Division 3 indoor history.

“To say someone is an 18-time All-American, even for me to hear it is like, ‘Holy crap,’” Lucas said. “It is certainly a testament to her, and it's probably a career that will be unrivaled; I’m not sure Mount Union will see someone of that caliber, ever (again).”

This spring before her career comes to an end with Mount Union, there’s still one record she’s chasing – the outdoor 800 meter (2:10.38) – the one her mom owns. Wayt clocked 2:15.40 on April 6 at the Wooster Invitational in Ohio.

“I tried hard during indoors to get her record there, and was a little under a second off,” Wayt said with a laugh. “If I have time to do the 800 a few times I will definitely try and get it before my eligibility is up.”