Olympic Runner Comes to Tabor

By Tyrel Haynes

It is not every day that Tabor College has Olympic athletes on campus. Ryan Hall recently came to Tabor College and spoke at Chapel about his life from early childhood, as a college student and as a retired runner.

In Hall’s early life, he wanted to become a professional baseball player. “One day, going to a basketball game, I was looking at a lake and got a calling from God to run,” said Hall.

The next morning he decided to run eight miles and after this running would become a love in his life.

After his dad had a talk

with him about him being good at multiple things or being excellent at one thing, Hall made the decision to

continue running. After running for years, Hall decided to go to Stanford University. At Stanford, Hall started to struggle with depression, health and academics, and he decided to leave Stanford for a semester. He later realized that not

being there made it worse. He finished his senior year back at Stanford as a NCAA national champion in the 1600 and became a professional athlete. Hall qualified for the marathon at the Beijing Olympics, and he set a goal of trying to get on the podium. Shortly into the race, Hall started to figure out that the race was not going the way he wanted. He received a calling from God to encourage others. “Listening to God is like listening to a second language,” said Hall.

Because of injury, Hall had to retire from running and is now focusing on bodybuilding and coaching his wife. Hall’s main message was this: “There is nothing better than knowing Jesus. Knowing Him, you have already won.”

Ryan Hall, Olympic runner