Not every athlete is able to play two sports competitively at a high level, but Logan Schneider is one of the rare few who can. 

ISU men’s track and field hurdler Schneider made his early post-high school plans around football, the sport he originally played. But little did he know, he would become an impact walk-on hurdler at a Division I school. 

The linebacker was no stranger to success in his high school career. His football team at Sycamore High School was the top-ranked team in Illinois and the high school track and field team that he would eventually compete with had some of the best athletes in the state.

In Schneider’s senior season in football, Sycamore amassed a 12-1 record and was one game away from the state championship. Schneider was a big part of the team’s success.

“He led by his example,” said Schneider’s former football coach Joe Ryan. “He’s not one of those guys that talks a lot when he plays, he just plays and plays hard. It’s just easy to follow that.” 

Ryan thought Schneider was a little undersized to play linebacker at a high level in college, but added that he had the athleticism that made him an exceptional defensive back.

Ryan and many other coaches tried to get Schneider to go out for track since Schneider’s freshman year in high school. It wasn’t hard to see that he could succeed in many things that he tried to do athletically.

“He is just so fast twitch,” Ryan said. “I am convinced that there isn’t anything that he can’t do athletically if you teach it to him.”

He gave in for a short time at the end of his junior season. He wasn’t exactly thrilled with the experience.

“I was like, ‘this is boring,'” Schneider said. “And then I just quit.”

In Schneider’s senior season, he finally listened to the clamoring of coaches. 

As Schneider made his way from the pads and toughness of a football player to the finesse and quickness of a track athlete, he had some struggles along the way — like getting over the hurdles in the first place.

“Without trying to embarrass him, he looked like a bull in a China shop,” said Schneider’s former track and field coach Pete Piccony with a laugh. “He was a linebacker, he wanted to attack things and knock them all down.  So we had to say, ‘stop treating the hurdles like a tackling dummy.'”

As he began to acclimate to the differences of track and field, he started to get rid of his “bull” jumping style and replaced it with the style of a more experienced and athletic hurdler. 

Working with the coaches day in and day out, Schneider improved each day. He took his experience from football and watched film on his hurdling form. Schneider and his coach went to YouTube and looked at professional hurdlers. The process showed in his late-season results.

With his speed, he was put as the anchor on the top-ranked 4×100-relay team in the state of Illinois. And his times grew better and better until he finally made it to the state championship. 

He competed in the 110-meter hurdles, 300-meter intermediate hurdles and the 4×100 relay. After qualifying for the final in the 110-meter hurdle finals, Schneider had a chance to make his mark in his first and only track and field season in high school. 

His 110-meter hurdles went better than most thought. 

He finished in second place, beating out multiple athletes who were higher ranked. His time of 14.47 was only .05 seconds behind the first-place finisher.

But the most memorable moment for Schneider was when the finisher behind him threw his medal in frustration at Schneider upsetting a majority of the pack by upping his personal record .33 seconds. 

“I don’t know what he was thinking when he went in, but when he came walking off that track after the race, he had a surprised look on his face,” Piccony said. “I know for a fact that coaches in our conference that were a tad bit surprised as well.”

The relay went the complete other way. 

Entering the meet as the top-ranked 4×100 in Illinois, the team didn’t even get a chance to prove that title. A false start at the beginning of the race disqualified the relay team.

“[The race] is still heart-wrenching to this day, it’s tough to talk about,” Piconny said. “[Schneider] was the anchor, so I think for him it was one of those ‘welcome to track’ moments.”

Schneider’s first season on the track and field team opened some eyes at Division I schools around the Midwest region.

Schneider originally looked at Iowa State because of the good mixture of athletics and academics. He wanted to be a civil engineering major at one of the top-ranked engineering schools in the nation.

“I looked at both the football and track teams [at Iowa State] and thought that I had a good chance to make both,” Schneider said. “[Iowa State] had the same feel as my hometown as well.”

Schneider has found some success at Iowa State, despite being a walk-on hurdler. He won his first race as a Cyclone at the 2015 Jim Duncan Invitational in Des Moines. 

At the Big 12 Outdoor Championship, Schneider broke his personal best with a 14.25 mark and finished in seventh place. It grabbed him the No. 10 spot on the ISU all-time list. 

He qualified for the NCAA West Preliminaries in the 110-meter hurdles but failed to make it to the NCAA Outdoor Championship.

“As a teacher, that’s our ultimate goal, to get our high school kids to college,” Piconny said. “The fact that he gets to compete at a high level at a good school, I think it makes it all that much better.”

Finishing his freshman season, Schneider still has three more years to make it just a little further. 

And he might even play a little football at Iowa State as well. 

“I think I have a good shot,” Schneider said of his walk-on chances for the ISU football team. “If I decide to do it.”

So his story continues.