Ryce Reynolds excels at Stanford
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Inside the classroom, on the track
By Darrell Dodge
[This is the first part of a two-part article catching up with Ryce Reynolds, a 2024 MACHS graduate, about his first year at Stanford University.]
Young boys and girls on Iowa playgrounds often dream of following their role models to reach the highest levels of athletic achievement, and a select few are talented enough and dedicated enough to make those dreams come true.
Several such athletic role models come to mind – Caitlin Clark, Kurt Warner, Dan Gable, Shawn Johnson, Fred Hoiberg – to name a few.
Missing from that list is a role model representing the sport of track and field.
That omission is one Ryce Reynolds may soon correct.
A 2024 graduate of Mount Ayr High School, Reynolds had already left a legacy of excellence at the prep level.
Individually and on relays, he holds eight school records at Mount Ayr, 13 Pride of Iowa conference titles, six indoor titles, one Drake Relays title, and eight state meet titles – including two state championship meet-record performances.
That resume caught the attention of Stanford University the summer before his senior year.
That fall, he and his family visited the California campus.
“I walked away from that visit amazed at all the resources that were going to be available for me if I decided to go there,” Reynolds said. “All the facilities were amazing, and I loved everybody – those who were going to be on my team, the coach, and everything like that. It just seemed like such a good fit.”
In mid-winter, Stanford offered Reynolds a scholarship to join the Cardinal track and field team.
“As soon as my coach called and told me that I had been accepted,” he said, “I went ahead and committed right away on the phone with him. I was super excited … Stanford was my front runner all through my process … I was relieved that all the right pieces seemed to fall together.”
Academics
Stanford is known as one of the top academic universities in the nation, and academics was also instrumental in Ryce’s decision to attend.
“I knew the academics were going to be phenomenal,” he said. “At the end of the day, I know track and field can’t last forever – for anyone – and so having a respectable degree makes the biggest difference. And that was ultimately why I picked Stanford.”
Those high academic standards caused Reynolds to change his senior year course schedule.
“Stanford, of course, required a few different academic requirements for my senior year,” he said. “I was planning on taking just a few easy classes and the work-to-school program for my senior year. They were pretty quick to tell me that I needed to change that.”
Arriving on campus
Reynolds moved into his dorm on campus in September of last year and was immediately impressed by his unique living arrangement.
“Stanford does something unique for all first-year students,” he explained. “They pair all freshmen, athletes and non-athletes, with a random roommate. They pair you with someone based on your sleeping habits, your music preferences, your likes and dislikes, and a lot of other personality factors. They take all that information and match you with someone random.”
Ryce’s roommate, Andrew, was a computer science major from Los Angeles, an arrangement that he believed was a good fit for a first-year roommate.
“He wasn’t on any athletic team or anything like that,” he said, “but I think having him and being able to branch out and make friends outside of the track team, it was really beneficial for me.”
His first year at Stanford also opened Reynolds up to different career possibilities.
“I went into my first year thinking of possibly studying human biology, and that’s something I’m definitely still considering,” he said. “But I’ve also been contemplating something within the engineering program. Civil engineering wasn’t something that I knew I was interested in at first, but I’ve since taken a few classes that might have opened my interest in that direction.”
Stanford does not allow students to declare a major until after their sophomore year.
“I still have a big decision to make at the end of this school year, but I’m excited.” he said. I think it’s a good problem to have that I’m interested in more than one thing.”
Time management
Reynolds admits he did not anticipate the workload facing him as a collegiate student-athlete.
“It did take a few weeks at the beginning of the year to get adjusted to everything,” he said. “I was having class almost non-stop from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., practice from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m., lift from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m., and then dinner, a few hours of homework, and then off to bed as soon as my homework allowed. So there was never a day where I wasn’t working my tail off.”
“To be honest, I severely underestimated how much time all of my classwork, homework, and training was going to take,” he said. “At times, it felt a little overwhelming balancing track and school, but I feel like I’ve learned so much about myself in the past year. I’ve realized how much I can balance and how much I can handle – and that’s probably 10 times more than I thought I could in high school.”
Despite the workload, Reynolds rose to the occasion.
“After a while, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that, hey, these world-class students at Sanford are people, too. What they’re doing isn’t impossible for somebody who has a hard work ethic and somebody that can – at the end of the day – grit their teeth and put some effort in … I can say that I did, honestly, much better than I thought I was going to in my classes.”
In his first year at Stanford, Reynolds earned a 3.74 grade point average and was named to the Atlantic Coast Conference All-Academic Track Team.
Reynolds credits his development of time management skills as crucial to his academic success.
He offers this advice to college freshmen: “Get your ducks in a row and figure out time management. I can’t sit here and say I’ve perfected it yet, but I can say that I was forced to refine my time management throughout the entire year … I always had to remind myself that there’s always a next time to hang out with your friends and have fun, but there’s not always a next time to turn an assignment in.”
Reynolds also stressed the importance of work ethic.
“I found some classes that I really, really, really enjoyed,” he said, “and there’s nothing better than working your butt off on an assignment and getting rewarded with a good grade. You start to fall in love with that type of feeling. After a while, knowing that your hard work is paying off in some regard, yeah, that feeling is kind of addicting.”
Regular class attendance was part of Ryce’s work ethic.
“Unless I was ever sick or traveling for competition, I never missed a class,” he said. “I feel like it would be 10 times harder to stay afloat if you aren’t going to class … I never skipped anything unless I absolutely needed to.”
[In next week’s Record-News, Reynolds recalls his freshman year competing for the Stanford Cardinal track team.]
