Cale Wallace - Women's Cross Country Associate Head Coach/Assistant Coach - Staff Directory

Staff Directory

Cale Wallace

Title:
Women's Cross Country Associate Head Coach/Assistant Coach
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Cale Wallace was promoted to women's cross country associate head coach ahead of the 2024 season, and serves as a track and field assistant coach leading women's distance. Wallace wrapped his fourth season at Iowa State, and first in his new role, in 2024-25. Wallace joined the Cyclones after two seasons as an assistant coach at North Dakota.

In his first season leading the women in 2024-25, Wallace coached Maelle Porcher to another NCAA XC Championships appearance, while the distance star went on to have her highest NCAA finish of 12th in the 5K at NCAA Outdoor Championships. Porcher joined ISU hall-of-famer Betsy Saina as the only Cyclone women to earn multiple All-America honors in the outdoor 5K. At Big 12 Indoor and Outdoor Championships, the middle distance and distance women Wallace oversees accounted for 46 points throughout the 800m, 1K, mile, 3K and 5K.

From 2021-24, Wallace worked with Iowa State distance runners in both track and field and cross country. In track and field, he specialized in the coaching and development of steeplechase student-athletes. As an assistant with the men’s cross country squad, Wallace helped guide Iowa State to a second place finish at the NCAA Cross Country Championships, the program’s fifth top-two finish all time. His work with the squad saw ISU place seven men on the All-Big 12 team for a third-straight season and five on the All-Midwest Region team.

In track and field, Wallace led steeplechasers to put Iowa State in the national spotlight as the lone program in the nation to have a top-three finisher in both the men’s and women’s steeplechase at NCAA Championships in 2024. Gable Sieperda (8:25.92) and Janette Schraft (9:34.82), both native Iowans, downed their school records yet again while hitting the automatic U.S. Olympic Trials standard as they took bronze. Sieperda first downed ISU legend Wesley Kiptoo’s steeple record earlier in the season and Schraft cut 23 seconds off her own record first set in 2023 as she became an all-time top 25-ranked collegiate performer.

Wallace was influential in the development of many of the Cyclones’ top distance runners and competitors in 2022, playing a key role in Ryan Ford earning a trip to the NCAA Outdoor Championships in the 5,000m run. In 2023, Wallace helped lead Schraft to earn the first steeplechase All-America honor in ISU women's track and field history while Schraft also became the first to break 10 minutes in the event.

Wallace’s tenure at North Dakota saw him help lead the Fighting Hawks to new heights. In cross country, UND finished the 2020-21 season in third on the men’s side and second for the women at the Summit League Championships, each program’s highest conference finish since entering Division I. On the track, UND’s middle distance and distance groups tore up the record books across the 2021 season, capped with Erica Eades qualifying for NCAA West Prelims in the women’s 800m run, becoming the first UND runner to qualify for West Prelims since 2016.

Wallace spent two seasons as a volunteer assistant at his alma mater Arkansas, where his work with the Razorbacks helped Arkansas women win the 2019 NCAA Indoor and Outdoor Championships, while the men’s and women’s cross country programs both were the NCAA South Regional champions in 2018.

As a student-athlete at Arkansas, Wallace earned First Team All-America honors running the lead-off for UA’s seventh-place distance medley relay squad at the NCAA Indoor Championships. A team captain in both cross country and track, he was an SEC silver medalist outdoors in the steeplechase in 2016 and qualified for the NCAA West Prelims in the steeple in 2016 and 2017.