Vassar’s Youngest-Ever National Track Champion: Haley Schoenegge ’27

Haley Schoenegge ’27 made Vassar history on May 25, becoming the first Brewer to win a national track and field title in their first year. Schoenegge led wire-to-wire and breezed to a nine-second victory in the 1,500-meter run at the NCAA Division III Track and Field Championships in Myrtle Beach, SC. Three hours later, she finished fourth in the 5,000-meter run, earning her second All-American designation of the day.

But as she reflected on her accomplishments, Schoenegge said the journey to the national championship with Coach James McCowan ’99 and her teammates was even more satisfying than the event itself. “I just love the whole team aspect of the experience,” she said in a Zoom call from her Prospect, KY, home during her summer break. “Cheering for others’ success is more rewarding for me than my own accomplishments. It’s an amazing group of people on this team.”

Schoenegge said she had a hunch that she’d fit right in on the Vassar cross country and track teams when she first began looking at colleges during her senior year in high school. She said she’d never heard of Vassar until her college advisor suggested it might be a good fit for her, so she checked out the website and navigated to the Athletics page. She found a photo that included not only members of the team and Coach McCowan, but also McCowan’s dog, Stella. “I thought to myself, ‘Well, that’s kind of awesome—a dog in a team photo. Maybe Vassar is the right kind of place,’” Schoenegge said.

A visit to the Vassar campus later that year clinched Schoenegge’s decision. “The culture is all about team and community,” she said. “I clicked with everyone right away.”

Schoenegge experienced immediate success with the cross-country team in the fall of 2023, leading the squad to its first-ever Liberty League championship. Typically, she doesn’t have any pictures of her running that race. The photo that hangs on her dorm room wall is one of a post-race group hug with her teammates.

Coach McCowan, an All-American runner himself, said he had learned over the course of Schoenegge’s first year at Vassar not to be surprised by anything she accomplished. In fact, by the time he and Schoenegge arrived in Myrtle Beach, he had a pretty good hunch she’d win the 1,500. “My goal was to give Haley the space to succeed, and that meant having fun and not putting too much weight on the outcome,” he said. “But I trusted her to do what it would take to win.

“Good athletes always make the coach look like a genius,” McCowan continued, “but at Vassar, you want them to want to be part of something larger than themselves. Haley is happy in that culture.”