Kenneth Rooks is The Fall Guy. That's what he's known for. The Guy Who Fell . Everything changed for him after The Fall. When he fell, he fell upward, so to speak. Or right through a window into the next dimension of his running career.
Since The Fall — since he tumbled to the track at the 2023 U.S. Track and Field Championships and came from way back to win, making headlines around the country and inspiring those who witnessed it — he's secured a professional contract with Nike, wrapped up a second U.S. championship in the 3,000-meter steeplechase and won the U.S. Olympic trials to secure a spot in the Paris Olympics .
"It was life-altering," Rooks says of The Fall. "After the race I realized it meant something bigger. I knew how difficult it was to fall and win, especially at that level. It was not only cool, but I realized this was going to mean something. As I took my victory lap, people were thanking me for the lesson. They could learn from my race."
Kenneth Rooks celebrates after winning the men's 3000 meter steeplechase final during the U.S. track and field championships in Eugene, Ore., Saturday, July 8, 2023. | Ashley Landis, Associated Press
When you fall, get back up …
The Fall Guy now faces another defining moment in his young running career: the Olympics. Nobody thinks so, but Rooks has a realistic chance to medal. By world standards, his personal-best time of 8:15.08 — which he produced in May — is rather modest — 24th fastest in the world this year. But he hasn't faced fast competition this season and, for that matter, he hasn't raced much, either.
Foot and Achilles injuries forced him to withdraw from scheduled competitions and limited him to just three races leading up to the trials. Now he's rounding into top fitness at the perfect time. In the right race, Rooks will run deep into sub-8:10 territory, which is what it will take to medal. His coach, Ed Eyestone , thinks he can run in the 8:06 range or faster.
"I'm fitter than last year," says Rooks. "But there have been a few training hiccups — my foot and my Achilles bothered me and I had to back off a little.'
The Fall notwithstanding, Rooks is a savvy racer and his ferocious kick makes him a threat in any tactical race, as most championship races are. He's capable of sustaining a long kick, as he demonstrated at the trials when he made a late break from the pack and covered the final half-mile in two minutes flat.
His rivals gave chase and paid for it. The beneficiary was Rooks' training partner, BYU sophomore James Corrigan , who passed five tiring runners on the final lap to secure third place and an eventual Olympic berth.
Rooks and Corrigan will race in Paris on Aug. 5 in the first round of the steeplechase.
"It would be sad if I forgot what an amazing opportunity this is," Rooks says. "I've got to make the most of it. It's not going to be a vacation."
Rooks was sitting in the stands of the BYU track and field facility, waiting for Corrigan to show up for a workout. Corrigan is late, but, as Eyestone notes dryly, that's his M.O. "He's honeymooning in Park City, so I think we gotta cut him some slack," says Eyestone. So Rooks settles in to wait, allowing himself a moment to reflect on the head-spinning turn of events in his own life. In the last few months, he left BYU, signed a professional contract with Nike, got married and made the Olympic team.
BYU steeplechasers and Olympics-bound Kenneth Rooks and James Corrigan work out in Provo on Thursday, July 11, 2024. | Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret News
"It's been an adjustment," he says, referring to his professional status, not his marriage. "There's added expectation. Nike is paying for me to perform. That's my job. I don't have a part-time job."
Only two years ago he was simply trying to make the travel squad at BYU, which is one of the reasons he became a steeplechaser in the first place. As a freshman in 2018-19, Rooks struggled during the cross-country and indoor track seasons.
"It was a hard transition (from high school)," says Rooks, who grew up in Walla Walla, Washington. "I didn't make the travel team. I felt my best opportunity to get on the travel team was the steeplechase. Coach (Eyestone) told me I could be an All-American someday in the steeplechase. That got my attention."
He was a fast learner. He made his steeplechase debut in the Willie Wilson Classic in Tucson, Arizona, in March 2019 and finished third with a time of 8:59.48. Two weeks later he finished third again, this time in the Stanford Invitational with a time of 8:46.67. In the NCAA preliminary meet he finished second with a time of 8:36.08 and qualified for the NCAA championships, where he finished 11th.
Rooks spent the next two years serving a church mission in Uganda. He returned to BYU for his sophomore season in July 2021. Just 11 months later he finished sixth in the NCAA championships with a time of 8:22.56, the second-fastest in school history. Rooks began to think bigger about his prospects for the next season.
"I felt I had a shot of winning the national championship going into my junior year," he says. "I knew it was a possibility. I didn't put limits on myself. Then I ran in the Sound Track Festival (in Walnut, California) — that was a surprise. I was not expecting that."
In that race, on May 6, 2023, he beat an international field of pros and beat them soundly, finishing exactly three seconds ahead of the runner-up. His victims included two Olympic finalists and one world champion.
"It opened my eyes," says Rooks. "I just beat pros and Olympians. Wow."
He went on to pull off a rare double by winning both the NCAA and U.S. championships. It was during the U.S. championships that he made a real name for himself — by falling.
Just two laps into the 7½-lap race, Rooks was running close behind Anthony Rotich when the latter suddenly slowed and stutter-stepped as they approached the barrier on the backstretch. With no room to maneuver in a tight pack of runners and no way to continue his momentum for a clean leap of the barrier, Rooks simply somersaulted over it and then rolled twice on the track as four trailing runners leaped over him.
He popped to his feet and resumed running, but he had been left behind. It was a disaster. Or so it seemed at the time.
"Everyone was running over the top of me," says Rooks. "I got up and I just told myself I need to go into Henry Marsh mode."
Marsh, a former BYU athlete and four-time Olympian, was famous for running at the back of the pack and working his way into the lead late in the race.
Ironically, Rooks had "practiced" this scenario. During a training session one month earlier, he fell over the same barrier he would fall over at the U.S. championships. That prompted a discussion with Eyestone about what he should do if he fell in an actual race. They agreed that in such an event he shouldn't try to catch up to the competition immediately (which eats up energy) but to reel in the field gradually.
After falling, Rooks was in last place, three seconds behind the 13th-place runner and four seconds behind the leader. He gradually began to close the gap. After two laps, he had worked his way back to the pack and was only one second behind the leaders after picking off rivals one by one. With 300 meters to go, Rooks caught the three frontrunners.
BYU steeplechasers and Olympics-bound Kenneth Rooks talks with coach Ed Eyestone prior to working out in Provo on Thursday, July 11, 2024. | Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret News
"Look at this!" exclaimed NBC commentator Kara Goucher. "Kenneth Rooks, the NCAA champion who fell and got back up and reattached himself to the pack, is now making a run for the national championship!"
As Eyestone said afterward, it was one thing to catch the leaders after spotting them a four-second lead during the race; it was quite another to summon a kick after such an effort. Rooks moved into second place briefly on the final turn, then fell back to fourth place, but as the frontrunners cleared the water jump he made another move that carried him into second place. In the homestretch he hurdled the final barrier and sprinted into the lead as the crowd, fully aware of what was happening, roared.
"That was like (the movie) 'Chariots of Fire,' where the guy falls and wins and you think, OK, that's a little too much," Eyestone said. "It was Hollywood."
Rooks' tumbling act caught the attention of non-track fans and a media that largely ignores the sport. He was the talk of the country.
Still sitting in the stands at the BYU stadium, waiting for the arrival of his honeymooning training partner, Rooks recalls the aftermath of The Fall. "Opportunities opened up for me. Professional opportunities. The opportunity to share the story that inspired people. And an opportunity to share the gospel a little. I had to talk about (The Fall) a lot.
"I had done some interviews, but now I got thrown into it. People wanted to hear my story. It was a lesson to them. It taught me a lot, too. I didn't realize I could win after I fell. When I fell, winning wasn't my expectation. It taught me that in a rough situation, I'm better off than I think. It helped my confidence."
Afterward, he was bombarded with requests to do interviews and podcasts. There was a crush of NIL opportunities to consider and the opportunity to turn pro.
"That's when I first began thinking about the Olympics," he says. "I set my eyes on the Olympics."
After finishing 10th in the 2023 world track championships in Budapest, he competed in cross-country for BYU and then passed up his senior year of track to turn pro, signing with renowned agent Ray Flynn.
Rooks is still sitting in the stands when Corrigan finally shows up. The two of them begin a lengthy warmup routine in the hot late-morning sun. Eyestone explains the workout. They will run, in succession, 1,200 meters, 800 meters, 1,200 meters, and 800 meters at race pace with a 1:1 rest between reps, over hurdles every other lap. With Eyestone holding a stopwatch and recording times in a notebook, the duo blazes through the first two reps in lockstep, but on the third rep Rooks gaps his young teammate.
"That's 8:07 pace right there!" Eyestone calls out to Rooks as he completes his fourth rep. "One of the guys you beat (in a race earlier this year) just ran that in Europe."
"I'm looking ahead to the Olympics," says Rooks. "I think I can improve on my performance at worlds. But I don't want to worry about placement too much. I want to focus on the process of racing and put myself in the best place I can be. I don't know what will happen, whether it will go out fast or slow. I have to be prepared to run fast."
With the Olympic format, he'll have to be prepared to run fast even in the first round. Normally, that's a slow, tactical affair because runners know they can advance to the final by place or by time. In the U.S. Olympic trials, for example, the top five in each heat plus the next four fastest times advanced. In Paris, only the top five in each of the three first-round heats will advance, regardless of time.
"The future is bright for Kenneth," says Eyestone. "He's young enough that there could be at least two more Olympics beyond this one in his future. But as well as he's running now, he could strike now while the iron is hot."
