By Bill Sheehan
As the youngest of three children, Mckaylie Caesar often tagged along with her older brother and sister as they played sports in Lindsay, a small agricultural city in the southeast San Joaquin Valley. Soon she was participating herself, taking up swimming, basketball, golf, soccer and gymnastics.
Running was not one of her sports. That suddenly changed the day her sister Maddie asked Caesar to fill on Lindsay High School's cross-country team. "Maddie had to play in a golf event that day, and she asked me to take her place at a cross-country meet."
Caesar, then a sophomore, not only filled in – she was the team's top finisher that day. And by the season's end, she was named the team MVP.
She quickly developed into an elite high school cross-country and track and field athlete. Caesar won individual league and regional titles and reached the state finals in track and cross-country. Now the Cal State Fullerton redshirt sophomore is trying to make her mark on the collegiate level.
Caesar and her teammates will try to bring a second straight title to Fullerton at the Big West Women's Cross Country Championship at the Wildhorse Golf Club in Davis. The event, which is being hosted by UC Davis, begins Friday at 10 a.m.
Titan assistant coach Alex Tebbe said his team is ready for the challenge. "I expect our women to challenge UC Davis for the title. This is up front the best women's team we've ever had. But we are up against one of the best UC Davis teams ever," he said.
Team's second-place finisher at three meets
"I like our chances," said Caesar, who has finished second on the team this season at the Mark Covert Classic in Carbon Canyon Regional Park in Brea, the Dellinger Invitational in Springfield, Oregon, and the Highlander Invitational in Riverside.
"We have a solid group of women. Trinity [Ruelas] leads the way for us, and our two through five finishers are running close together. We have the mindset that working together is going to get us a championship."
"Mckaylie is capable of placing in the top 10 and earning all-conference honors. She has is very mentally tough late in a race, especially when the pace is heating up, and she is very capable closing gaps at the end of a race.
Caesar, who turned 21 on Tuesday, said her training has been going well. "I have patience and trust in the process," she said. "I'm trying to build and progress. As long as I'm healthy, everything else will fall into place."
Caesar had a promising freshman cross-country campaign in 2019. She had placed eighth at the Mark Covert Classic and seventh at the University of San Diego Invite. Then a stress injury to her left femur ended her season two weeks before the Big West finals.
"My heel striking was causing shock up my left leg," said the 5-foot-3 Caesar, who stopped running for two months. "I had to change my form."
Coach and father worked to change Caesar's running mechanics
Tebbe and Caesar's father, John, worked together to develop a stride that better suits her. "The root causes of the injury were tight hips and immobile hips. I think Mckaylie would have been the Big West Freshman of the Year if she hadn't got hurt," said Tebbe.
"We changed her mechanics, and she started running on the balls of her feet,"
said her father, a teacher and athletic director at Lindsay High, who has served as a personal coach for his daughter.
The cancellation of the 2020 college track and cross-country seasons was a blessing for Caesar, who had plenty of time to fine-tune her new running style. Living at home during the height of the pandemic, she would do training runs by herself or occasionally with former high school teammates.
"It was hard running by myself, really hard," Caesar said. "I would run through orchards and along canals. It got pretty lonely."
With her siblings Leif and Maddie also returning home from college, the Caesar household went from an empty nest to a full house. Her mother, Kristy, a transitional kindergarten teacher, coordinated the family logistics. "Mom got all of us back. Everyone had a room for their Zoom meetings," said Caesar.
A strong return to the track last spring
Back at full strength, Caesar competed on the Titan team last spring. She ran a personal-best time of 4:42.15 in the 1,500-meter race at the UC Riverside Distance Invite. At the Big West Championships, she scored for Fullerton in the 10K, finishing seventh in a personal-best of 36:35:75. She also placed ninth in the 5K at the finals with a personal-best of 17:19.30.
Her achievements seem even more amazing given her start in life. Her family was living in Woodstock, Illinois when Caesar was born with a congenital diaphragmatic hernia and given a 50% chance of surviving. Her vital organs had settled into her chest cavity, restricting her lung development and resulting in the loss of half of the gray matter in her brain.
She underwent an experimental procedure using an extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, or ECMO, machine. It provided a steady flow of oxygen to her brain while she was in an induced coma. She had to sacrifice her left carotid artery, and there was a 65% chance that the entire left side of her body would become paralyzed.
But at her one-year checkup, it was discovered that all of Caesar's gray matter had regenerated, and her lung function had significantly improved. "Mckaylie is a remarkable kid who overcame tremendous odds," said her father. "She has given hope to families who are dealing with this condition."
Swimming at 2 years old helped her lungs
Caesar's parents got her swimming at 2 years old, and she became a competitive swimmer at 4. "This really helped with her lung capacity," said her father. "It also taught her grit and how to compete."
As a freshman at Lindsay High, she lettered in basketball, golf and swimming. Caesar was a five-sport letter winner as a sophomore when she added cross country and track. But she dropped golf and swimming as a junior and concentrated solely on running as a senior.
Her list of running achievements is a long one. Caesar was the MVP for the school's cross-country and track teams as a sophomore, junior and senior. She was team captain in both sports as a junior and senior.
She was the East Sequoia League cross-country champion as a sophomore, junior and senior and qualified for the CIF State Championship all three years. Caesar won the CIF Central Section Division 4 Cross Country Championship as a junior and a senior. She placed 10th at the state meet as a senior, earning All-State honors.
On the track, Caesar tripled in the 800 meters,1,600 meters and 3,200 meters. She finished third in the CIF Central East Area as a junior and a senior. She qualified for the state meet as a junior and senior, finishing 23rd at the state meet in the 1,600 meters as a senior.
An ability to work hard in every phase of running
"Mckaylie is an athlete who can grind," said Lindsay High coach Joe Dixon, who guided the cross country and track teams in her senior year. "She has talent and determination, and she really worked hard in every phase of running, both mentally and physically.
"She has guts. She has a pain tolerance through the roof, and she uses it to her advantage," he said.
Caesar was recruited by several Big West Schools. "I wasn't really looking at Fullerton, but they were looking at me." She met with then-head coach John Elders and Tebbe, who told Caesar she could have a major impact on the program.
"I felt I would be appreciated and needed here," she said. "The girls on the team were all focused on running and working together. Other programs didn't have that spirit. I definitely made the best choice and the right choice."
"Alex is the best coach we could ever ask for. His strong suit is building relationships with the athletes. He pushes us and has us really working well together."
A fighter who isn't afraid of the big moments, head coach says
Marques Barosso, who was promoted to head coach of the men's and women's cross country and track programs in September after Elders' retirement, said Caesar is training hard and steadily improving.
"She is a fighter and not afraid of the big moments," Barosso said. "She gives the top girls a run for her money. Her future is bright. She has a very outgoing personality, and our recruits love her. You get all that with Mckaylie."
Caesar has T served as a mentor to the younger women on the team, said Tebbe. "She has been huge. A lot of women graduated from our 2019 conference championship team. And the Covid cancellations eliminated the potential for others to return. We have very few veterans on our team. Mckaylie is responsible for bringing along the younger women as the leader of our main pack."
Eva Rethmeier, a redshirt freshman from Poway, called Caesar a role model. "She is a leader on the team and someone I look up to. She is very energetic, like a ball of sunshine."
"She is a big sister to us. She is very dedicated and hard-working, and the younger girls follow her lead," said Rethmeier, who will become a business major next semester. "Mckaylie is fun to be with us. She will joke with us in a sarcastic manner, but she is always just kidding."
Caesar is a child and adolescent studies/development major. Her goal is to become a transitional kindergarten teacher, like her mother. And she would eventually like to work her way into coaching.
"Mckaylie's defining characteristic is staying even-keel and present in the moment, no matter what the situation is," said Tebbe. "She is posed to be the top girls on the team next year. She could be one of the top girls, if not the top, in the Big West Conference."
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— Titans Track & Field (@FullertonTFXC) October 29, 2021