Julius Hearns ’25 could have hung up his running shoes, but his resilience has kept him moving—mentally and physically—after suffering seven hamstring strains throughout his career on Wabash’s track and field team.
“During the moments when I couldn’t run, I kept showing up,” said the sprinter from Portage, Indiana. “These guys are my brothers. I can’t give up. I have a responsibility to be there for them and to try my best to get back on track.”
Head Track and Field Coach and Assistant Athletics Director for Scholar-Athlete Development Clyde Morgan drew the computer science major and psychology minor to Wabash. Within the first five minutes of his recruitment call with Morgan as a highschooler, Hearns remembers thinking “this is the type of person I want to surround myself with.”
“Coach Morgan has built a strong culture on the team,” Hearns said. “We have a brotherhood that I don’t think you can find anywhere else.”
Hearns knew he made the right decision to attend Wabash his freshmen year after competing in his first indoor conference. Even though he didn’t finish the race in the top-three, he recalls the team cheering for him like he was a winner.
“Everyone treated me like I still accomplished something,” he said. “That really stuck with me, and made me want to give that same experience to the younger guys.”
Hearns was reserved his first year on campus. He kept to himself, went to class, practice, back to his room, and home almost every weekend.
“He was a do what I got to do, nose to the ground kind of leader, I wanted to see that other half,” Morgan said. “I thought if I pushed him a little more beyond his comfort zone, he would grow in his confidence. Early on, I remember pointing to him in a practice and saying, ‘One day, you’re going to be captain.’”
That day came last year during a preseason practice, one that Hearns recalls being “one of the hardest workouts” he’s participated in during his collegiate career.
“We were running the perimeter of the baseball field, which was about 200 meters. We had to get there in 24 seconds,” Hearns said. “That entire time, I was pushing, exhausted, running back and forth just trying to hit 24. On my last rep, Coach Morgan looked at me and said, ‘You can do it. It’s time for you to be a leader.’ In that moment, something clicked in my head and I hit that 24.”
Morgan said Hearns sets the example for his teammates on how to carry themselves in times of adversity.
“He could have tapped out a couple of times, but Julius is a fighter,” said Morgan, recalling one of the many times Hearns experienced and ultimately overcame an injury.
He had a breakout year as a sophomore, Morgan said, earning top-ten finishes and posting a career-best time in the outdoor 200-meter dash. Then, roughly a week after he set a new school record in the 4x100m relay at the Huntsman Family Invitational, he pulled his hamstring.
“I had tears in my eyes for him,” Morgan said. “I felt terrible because he was doing everything we asked him to do.”
As a result of that injury, Hearns missed out on running most of his junior year in order to properly heal.
“I rushed (previous injuries) to get back, and I knew I couldn’t keep doing that,” Hearns said. “That reality was one of the hardest things to go through. The track was the place where I could decompress after a long day or bad test. There was a moment where I felt like I couldn’t do that because I couldn’t run.”
During those low moments, Hearns said he “focused on what matters.” He understood his teammates and coaches relied on him to be present.
“Even though I couldn’t run, I still had a responsibility to be there as captain,” Hearns said. “I thought of friends, like Jordan Thomas ’24 (former team captain), who hurt himself his freshman year to the point he wasn’t able to run. He was one of my biggest motivations on the track. He’s one of the people I do it for, because he missed out on something he loved. I wasn’t going to give up—that would be a slap in the face to him and all he did for me and the team.”
“Julius never gives up because he knows he’s a part of something bigger than himself,” Morgan added. “He has fully bought into the team mantra: Men of Wabash, Nothing Breaks Us (MOWNBU).”
Hearns has distinguished himself at Wabash through a variety of campus leadership roles and academic achievement. In addition to being a track and field team captain, he’s an RA for Rogge Hall, serves as a peer health educator, is a member of rock climbing club, and is membership co-chair for the Malcolm X Institute of Black Studies (MXIBS), where he helps recruit and integrate new brothers into the organization.
“I’m not the same person I was four years ago, and I’m proud of that growth,” said Hearns, who earned distinction on comprehensive exams and plans to pursue a career in data science then eventually get into project management.
“I used to be more of a role model to-be, as in, I just do the right thing and hope people follow me,” he concluded. “Now, I bring people along with me.”