UA Alum Cale Wallace has been hired as the Arkansas men’s distance coach
FAYETTEVILLE – Arkansas men’s head coach Doug Case has announced the hiring of UA alum Kyle Wallace as the Razorbacks’ head men’s cross country coach and assistant track and field coach.
“It’s a dream come true,” Wallace said. “When I started volunteering in Arkansas, you always dream of going back and doing real work and leading. It’s just a dream come true.
“Even when I started coaching, it was something you always hoped for and thought would happen, and it happened a lot sooner than I would have thought. So I’m just excited.”
A former All-American and Razorbacks captain, Wallace has coached at Iowa since 2021. In 2024, she was promoted to head women’s cross country coach and served as an assistant track and field coach leading the Iowa State women’s cross country team.
“We’re very excited to have Cale here,” Case said. “He’s a graduate and a great athlete while he was here at Arkansas. He is excited and we are. I think it’s a really good situation.
“We’ve hired a guy who has a lot of experience with both men and women at a very high level. He will direct the men’s distance program here. That’s important when you’re looking at someone who can do these things. I love that he is an alumnus and knows our system as well as the city of Fayetteville and all the people around it. I can’t wait for him to come.”
During the 2025 cross country season, the Iowa State women finished second to BYU at the Big 12 Championships and third in the NCAA Midwest Regional behind Oklahoma State and Northwestern State. They earned an at-large selection to the NCAA Championships, where the Cyclones finished 20th with a pair of All-America finishers.
Iowa State’s men’s cross country program finished second in the NCAA in pairs in recent seasons.
“Just being around a program that twice in my years with the men, we finished second in the national championship,” Wallace said. “Being around that kind of environment and culture definitely showed me what it takes from a coaching standpoint. Working with the women, we were able to turn a team that didn’t make nationals last year into a team that was ranked 6th in the country this year.
“From an athlete’s point of view, I learned a lot from working with Coach Bucknam and not only working with distance runners, but also with hurdlers, jumpers and sprinters. It’s the coolest part of Arkansas to be at all the event venues.”
Working with the Iowa State runners, Wallace coached a pair of Iowa athletes to bronze medals at the 2024 NCAA Championships as each broke the Cyclone men’s and women’s school records in addition to securing an automatic qualification for the U.S. Olympic Trials.
“He’s been very successful in everything he’s done,” Case said. “Not only in cross country, but also on track. He has had tremendous success from the 800m to the 10,000m with the kids he has coached and recruited there at Iowa State.
“He’ll come here and we’ll have the same experience. He’s excited about it and I think we have a lot of recruiting power. Then when you add a guy like Kaylee, we’re going to have some good kids.”
Prior to coaching at Iowa State, Wallace served as an assistant coach at North Dakota for two seasons. During his time at North Dakota, he guided the Fighting Hawks to their highest-ever finish in cross country as the program advanced to the Division I men’s team with a third-place finish and the women’s second-place finish at the Summit League Championships.
Wallace also spent two seasons as a volunteer assistant at Arkansas.
Competing with the Razorbacks from 2012 to 2017, Wallace captained the team during both the cross country and track and field seasons. She earned first-team All-American honors as a member of the distance medley relay team that finished seventh at the 2014 NCAA Indoor Championships.
“I think what I’m looking forward to from a coaching standpoint is just continuing to try to maintain that tradition of excellence,” Wallace said. “In my five years as an athlete at Arkansas, we never lost a cross country conference championship. In 10 indoor and outdoor seasons, I think we won six of them.
“So just stepping in as a coach and contributing throughout the year is something I’m really excited about, and not just on the cross country course. For us, there are three seasons in a year. At Arkansas, we try to win every season, and I’m really, really excited about that.”
Wallace ran a career-best 8:41.47 to win silver in the 3,000m at the 2016 SEC Championships. She qualified for the NCAA West Preliminary Round twice in the vault in 2016 and 2017.
At the SEC Indoor Championships, Wallace was a member of the distance medley relay that finished fourth (2016) and fifth (2015). He also took fifth in the mile at the 2014 SEC Indoor.
Competing in the 4 x 800m relay, Wallace was part of the winning Texas Relays in 2014 and was runner-up in the Drake Relays in 2014 and 2015.
In cross country, Wallace competed in four consecutive NCAA championships. At the SEC Championships, Wallace finished 14th (2012), 15th (2013), eighth (2014) and 17th (2015) as Arkansas claimed team titles each year. He finished sixth (2015) and ninth (2014) in the South Central Region.
Wallace is married to Logan (Bishop), who is also a UA graduate and was part of the women’s track and field program. They have a son, Pierce, who is two years old.
