Earning an Olympic bronze medal isn't what comes to Akeem Haynes’ mind when he thinks about the moments that shaped his life.
Instead, it’s a bus stop in the middle of a Canadian winter. A deflated air mattress in a small apartment. A walk with his son on a quiet morning.
Those moments seem unrelated. For Haynes, recruiting coordinator and sprints coach for Indiana Wesleyan University (IWU) Track & Field, they are connected by a single lesson he has spent a lifetime learning: obey God first and understand later.
Born in Jamaica, Haynes moved to Canada with his mother at a young age to escape the violence and crime of his home country. While the move gave him access to better athletic facilities and training opportunities, it also came with significant hardship.
“Sometimes you move to find a better life, and sometimes things don’t go as planned,” he reflected. “My mom and I were homeless and living at a bus stop. Most of our nutrition was bread because at a store across the street, you could get bread from five cents to a dollar.”
Most people would remember that season for what they lacked. Haynes remembers what he had.
"When you are stripped of everything, you have to look to something to stay hopeful for. And I was very grateful I had a jacket in the wintertime and that my mom was with me. I also understood what sports could do and the avenue that I could take to make my life better.”
Using that perspective as motivation, Haynes soon accepted a scholarship to run track and play football at Florida State University. But when one of his high school credits wasn't accepted, the opportunity disappeared, and the setback forced him to start over at Barton Community College in Kansas.
For someone who had once been among Canada's fastest young sprinters, the reality was humbling. When he arrived at Barton, he wasn't the fastest athlete on the team. He was fifth.
“I knew my discipline needed to increase.”
The same determination that carried him through difficult circumstances carried him through training. Before long, Haynes became one of the top junior-college recruits in the country and a national champion in multiple events.
As opportunities to transfer to Division I programs arrived, Haynes was between two options: Florida State University and The University of Alabama.
At the time, Alabama was not a powerhouse track and field program. While praying about the choice, he felt God tell him, "If you go to Alabama, you will change the culture and the history of this program. If you go to Florida State, you will run fast, but you will just be another number."
“I remember thinking, ‘What does that mean? I want to run fast! If I run fast, that is going to make my life better.’”
However, Haynes acted on what God was instructing him, and in a leap of faith, he committed to Alabama.
“Did I get a lot faster when I went to Alabama? No, I kind of stayed the same, but what God was instructing me was true,” he reflected. “I did not get the big contract or anything like that, but the program and the history of the team were better immediately.”
After college, Haynes again stepped into uncertainty, pursuing a professional career without the security of a major contract. For the first six months, the outlook seemed dim.
“I did not have any money, and I was sleeping on an air mattress that had a hole in it. I just remember thinking, ‘This has to work.’”
Eventually, the breakthrough came. Haynes became the third-fastest Canadian of all time in the 60-meter event, earned a professional contract, and became an Olympic bronze medalist at the 2016 Rio Olympics with Team Canada.
By 2025, Haynes had retired from professional running, built a successful speaking ministry, and was training athletes independently.
“My athletes kept getting results bigger, stronger, faster, but I did not think about it too much. I did not want to coach, but God kept bringing it up to me, and I tried to be obedient.”
As Haynes pursued coaching opportunities, two schools rose to the top of the list. One was much closer to where he, his wife, and their infant son were living in North Carolina.
The other was IWU.
“I did not want to go to Indiana. I left the cold for a reason,” Haynes said with laugh. “I told my wife to apply for me because I knew I would not do it on my own.”
And she did.
After speaking with IWU Track & Field head coach Caleb Snyder, Haynes was offered the position. Even then, he hesitated.
“I still did not know if I wanted to move my family across the country, and so I asked God to close the door if that is what He wanted.”
While walking one morning with his son, Haynes felt God challenge him: “You keep asking Me to close doors, but I am opening them.”
In that moment, he recognized yet again a familiar pattern. Every major chapter began with a step of faith before understanding. Now, God was asking him to take another one. Soon, Haynes accepted the position and moved his family to Marion, where they have resided for the past year.
“The Bible says that in whatever you do, do it well, and I take that to heart,” Haynes said. “When our time on this Earth comes, we do not get a redo. You have to live with how you did it and what you did.”
Looking back, Haynes can see God's hand in every step of his journey. The moments were not always significant, and the outcomes were rarely clear. Yet, each act of obedience led him exactly where he needed to be and taught a lesson that still guides his life today:
Obey first. Understand later.
