Tremendous Teens

‘Hard Work Makes You Happier’

All Eyes on KU Freshman After Standout Track Season 

Written by John Huthmacher



Big things can come in smaller packages.

Such has been the case with University of Kansas track and field standout Tayton Klein. Klein, 19, a true freshman, has long been competing alongside the giants of track and field, putting up numbers far greater than his slight 5-10, 160-pound frame would suggest were even possible. 

Having launched his career working out alongside Division 1-level Wichita Roadrunners club members at the tender age of 6, he has since made a name for himself by going above and beyond the expectations of those around him. “Originally the (Roadrunners) coach was like, ‘He’s too young. Come back in a couple of years,’ ” he recalls. “They had a lot of phenomenal athletes, but my mom said, ‘Let him run a lap. Just watch.’ The rest is history.”

The son of Terry and Jody Klein has regularly made “impossible” his new norm, first at Andover Public Schools, where he excelled in soccer, basketball, football and track, and at KU, where he has put up record-breaking numbers competing in heptathlon and decathlon events for the Jayhawks and achieved near-Olympic qualifying status, giving him ample reason to believe in his goal of being eligible for next summer’s Olympic qualifying event. 

“I’d always been an active kid,” he said. “I was playing baseball at age 6, but I was pretty antsy and had a hard time keeping still. Then I saw my four siblings running track and that seemed more my speed.” After competing in several Junior Olympic events in grade school and middle school, his focus turned to competing in high school sports, where track took a back seat to football and basketball. It was his success in football that initially generated interest in him as an athlete. 

He expected to play college football, but his plans changed his junior year when his skills in track began to overshadow his gridiron prowess. “Something clicked,” he said. “Whether I developed into a more mature body or whatever it may have been, I had a breakout year, winning state in the long jump and placing in the 4x400-meter relay.”

Under the tutelage of several club team coaches and his brother-in-law, former Wichita State University track standout Grant Ralston, Klein emerged as one of the state’s premier high school track athletes. After drawing recruiting interest from a number of Division 1 schools, he decided to enroll at the University of Kansas where he felt he would be close enough for family and friends to support him. 

It didn’t take long to establish himself as a prized up-and-comer. “After I got started training, the coach (Tom Hayes) said, ‘This kid works hard and has natural skills. We just have to shape him into a decathlete,’ ” Klein said. “Their standards were high, but after my first college meet, where I won the long jump, they started to accept that I did belong here and had what it took to compete at this level. It’s really been awesome to see the progression and how hard work has paid off.”

Klein has done little but win since, earning recognition on a national level during the Big 12 Indoor Conference in February. While his scores fell short of qualifying for the national tournament, he still turned heads, soaring more than 25 feet in the long jump to finish third in the event and seventh overall at the indoor heptathlon. Almost overnight, his popularity and confidence soared to unrivaled heights.

Following a steady path of success into the outdoor track season — which included a first-place finish in the long jump event at the John McDonnell Invitational in Arkansas — he and Hayes began to entertain the idea of testing his skill set in the Big 12 decathlon event. Unsure if he’d be competing, Klein nevertheless began preparing himself for the possibility. His eventual participation at Oklahoma University on May 12–13 produced results that were nothing less than remarkable.

Recording scores among the top true freshman marks in the country, he amassed a two-day total score of 7,620, a number remarkably close to the 8,000 points routinely needed to qualify athletes for national competition. Competing in five events each of the two days, his scores included a second-place finish in the 110-meter hurdles with a time of 14:71; a personal record pole vault of 15 feet, and a second-place finish in the javelin toss with a throw of 52 meters. Returning unexpectedly to compete in individual Big 12 events the following day out of necessity, he helped his team earn a 6th-place finish in the 4x100-meter relay, pushing through two and a half days of grueling fatigue from competition to accomplish the task. 

Klein credits his teammates, coaches and family for providing the support that empowered him to complete each task at hand. “They all saw the effort I was putting in and what I had already done and knew what the coaches were expecting,” he said. “Because of them, I was able to push through the pain.”

As he continues to work toward his goal of competing in next year’s Olympic qualifying event, Klein envisions a whole lot of pain and sacrifice on the horizon. But as he is quick to relate on his many posts on social media, it is the combination of sacrifice and devotion that pave the way for most successful endeavors. “What track has taught me this year is that hard work is rewarded as well as appreciated,” he said. “There aren’t that many people who are willing to put in the work to get the results they dream of. Hard work makes you happier.”