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In late May of 2017, Jaden Wiley felt like she was on top of the world.
“I remember I smiled as I went over the finish line and I was like ‘I actually did it’,” Wiley said.
The then-Kickapoo freshman had just won the 300-meter intermediate hurdles state title.
“It was just really exciting and it felt like all of the hard work throughout that year had paid off,” Jaden said.
One year later, as a sophomore, Jaden grabbed two more individual state medals in the hurdles and a third medal on a relay.
She seemed destined to capture more state glory as an upperclassman.
“State championship as a freshman, you can’t do any better than that, and how many state championships? We were thinking we could win more than one of them,” said Kickapoo Track Coach Jeremy Goddard.
But Jaden never got that chance.
“I was in the doctor’s office with my mom and they came in and told me and I remember crying because I was so sad,” Jaden said.
A broken foot cost her most of her junior year, including the postseason.
So she turned into a cheerleader for her teammates, learning a valuable lesson in the process.
“It helped me see what it meant to me,” Jaden said. “And really [showed me] how special it was to be able
to go out and run.”
It was a realization that makes losing her senior season even tougher.
“I kind of saw it coming, being away from school and our coaches and not being able to train together,” Jaden said.
“It was hard,” Goddard said. “It was hard last year and I thought that would be the hardest thing.”
Luckily, the end of this chapter doesn’t mark the end of Jaden’s track story.
Thanks in part to a strong indoor season she still has reason to train. Now, she’s preparing to join the team at the University of Kansas.
An opportunity she’s sure to cherish.
“From here on out, I’ll really take in all my races like they’re my last because you really don’t know. I wouldn’t have guessed that girls night out my junior year would’ve been my last high school race,” Jaden said.
With that attitude, maybe she’ll once again find that championship feeling.
