The Long Run: Dr. Jake Waddingham

by David Kallison

Dr. Jake Waddingham’s early life was small. His graduating class at his 1A high school was him, the valedictorian, and fewer than 30 other students. Waddingham participated in everything: sports, the speech team, and the Future Farmers of America (FFA), which, considering he lived on a farm with peacocks and chickens, made sense. After high school, he ran. Just not very far.

Waddingham took his high school cross country career and paced out the 15 miles to his local community college where he also ran track. It was a formative experience. He met his best friends, runners of course, during this time and trained next to two Kenyans on the team. Housed in Creston, Iowa (population: less than 8,000), the Southwest Community College Spartans were small but mighty.

So it was tough decision for Waddingham to take a gap semester to help with the Iowan governor’s latest campaign. There, he was a “bagman,” (like Tony Hale’s Gary on Veep) whispering the names of all the important donors and politicians into the ear of his candidate. The work was all encompassing and Waddingham found himself at endless election events. “It was a good experience, but a bad campaign,” Waddingham says.

After his electoral “break,” he heard of a cross country opportunity not in Iowa but, well, across the country in Tyler, Texas. He took it, his first foray out of his home state, majoring in journalism and political science while also joining the student newspaper as a new writer. This was the start of his storytelling career, one he would carry with him throughout his academic pursuits. At the same time his cross country experience in Tyler would cement his lifelong desire to be a runner. Waddingham notes that “I liked the personal challenge of doing something hard. I still do it today too. I even incorporate it into my research.” Going further he says, “It's still a cornerstone of who I am as a person.”

His nascent journalism career was helped by a third-place prize for a rodeo photograph as well as the break he got on a wild story about a guy busting out of jail. While small, this career remains an important part of Waddingham’s story. He met amazing mentors and friends and discovered an important personal truth: Jake Waddingham no longer wanted to stay in Creston, Iowa his whole life. Of that time he notes that it was “hard to live at that pace, and in that in that smaller community.”

So Jake ran again. This time to Iowa State for an MBA and a certified American college experience, terrible football team and all. He notes that “I felt back at home very quickly,” Waddingham says. “I liked being in a learning environment even though I was a little older than some of my classmates. I loved walking on the campus every day. I loved the challenge of learning.”

There he met one of his most valuable allies, Dr. Jim Summers, the management and entrepreneurship professor at the Ivy College of Business who taught one of Waddingham’s first classes. “His life just seemed awesome. He's talking about his hobbies, what he liked to do and what he does for the day. And I was like, ‘I think I kind of want to do that.’ And so I talked to him about it.

He was receptive. And intimidating. Waddingham says, “He's about my height, so a little on the short side, but he's like bodybuilder huge, so very intimidating to talk to. One of the nicest people ever, but just to walk with him is intimidating. And he's like, ‘If you were serious, you've got to go to this pre-doctoral consortium.’

It changed Waddingham’s life, leading him down the path that would eventually lead to his professorship here at Texas State. “I wouldn’t be here without [Jim]. When you’re first gen, blazing a new path, finding that spot that works is really important,” Waddingham says.

Despite all the miles, Waddingham can’t always outrun himself. He says, “I still feel a little bit like an impostor. Like, I just kind of stumbled through this and figured it out and don't want to encourage you down a path where you're not going to find your your community and your people because my path might not work for you.”

It’s important “to watch people of similar backgrounds taking that leap of faith to try college and try to make it work,” Waddinham says. “It makes coming to work every day mean something.” ✯