Almost all top athletes become the best by playing their sport since childhood. Wayne Gretzky started skating at the age of two and a half, and Lebron James started organized basketball in the fifth grade.
Few reach an elite level starting in high school, and even fewer make it without any formal training. Of the hundreds of varsity athletes at Queen’s there might only be one story like Jude Wheeler-Dee’s, ConEd ’26.
As a local Kingston resident, Wheeler-Dee attended Kingston Collegiate Vocational Institute (KCVI) just steps away from Queen’s campus. As a multi-sport athlete, he wanted to compete at the highest level of whatever sport he played. However, when it came to cross country, he wasn’t on Queen’s cross country and distance track head coach Mark Bomba’s radar at all.
“Jude’s a local guy. He went to KCVI, which is now KSS, and Jude had reached out to me in the spring [of his graduating year],” Bomba said in an interview with The Journal.
Him reaching out happened to be the result of a perfect storm of events, spurred by a classmate also trying out for the Queen’s Varsity team.
“I had a classmate who was in contact with Mark in our grade 12 year, and he asked if I wanted him to bring me up in his meeting and set up a meeting up with Mark. I said yes,” Wheeler-Dee remarked in an interview with The Journal.
This meeting got him a tryout with the team, but expectations were low for him coming into his freshman year. Running was never his main sport, and COVID-19 halted all competitions, so there was limited information on him.
“Jude kind of came in on our depth chart, honestly, for our incoming athletes that year, maybe, 10th, 11th or 12th. That’s where I kind of had him ranked based on what he had done previously in high school,” Bomba stated.
However, during a global pandemic where people faced adversity, Jude found nothing but time, with all events being put on pause.
“I started running a lot more during COVID-19, because there wasn’t really much else to do. And I always enjoyed running, but I never really had the time to take it, like, super seriously just with other sports,” he added.
After a pandemic filled with running, he sporadically showed up to tryouts, until he really caught the attention of coach Bomba on the final day.
“I’m making the final decisions on a Saturday, and this kid shows up and rolls a workout with our top guys, and myself and our assistant coaches are all staring at each other, and they’re like, ‘Who the heck is that guy?’” Bomba said.
His performance that day secured the unknown walk-in a spot on the team, but it’s taken years of structured training since then to reach his recent career heights.
“By the end of the season, he was our sixth guy, and he was 50th, so he placed better in his first USPORT [competition] than he ever did at OFSAA cross country,” Bomba said.
Since then, he’s become a school record holder, a Canadian silver medalist at the U20 National Championships, and has won a USPORTS gold in the 1000m—exceeding any expectations laid out when he first tried out.
Talking to him, you’d never get the impression that he’s achieved such heights. He’s quick to credit others, and never talks about his own success.
“If I can give a shout out, I’d give a shout out to Roman Mironov and Miles Brackenbury. They definitely took me under their wing, almost because I knew nothing, and they knew a lot more than me,” Wheeler-Dee emphasized.
“My favourite thing is going to practice when there’s like, 40 or 50 people there, there’s so many different personalities, and I’ve made my best friends on this team. I could list all 199 of them, but they definitely know who they are,” he added.
At his core is an athlete that puts in the hours, trains hard, and is dedicated to his craft. Naturally, the results end up following.
“Jude has those personality traits that I mentioned […], he’s dedicated, he’s motivated, he puts in the time,” Bomba said.
“Our recruits, or tryout people find out that story and they’re like, man, that could be me,” Bomba concluded.
Tags
cross country, Gaels, Jude Wheeler-Dee, Men’s Cross Country, Varsity
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