Track Pro Turned Model Kendall Baisden Relishes AAU Memories

Kendall Baisden won countless races and set numerous national records as an amateur athlete -- so many, in fact, that the wins and times begun to blur together when she reflected back on them recently. 

There were the times when she won IAAF World Junior (now known as World U20) titles and traveled around the world representing the United States. There were the moments when she went head-to-head against some of the top sprinters in the world, all while decked out in a neon uniform representing her former club team, Detroit Country Day (MI). 

But oddly enough, what sticks out to the 27-year-old Baisden now aren't her performances on some of the largest stages of track and field. Instead, they may be the lasting memories she shared with her former youth teammates, the ones highlighted by hot summer days and exuberant energy as she took to the track for countless AAU Junior Olympic Games.

"AAU was the big dance," the Detroit native and Detroit County Day School graduate said recently.  "It was the biggest turnout. It felt like an Olympic Games."

That was nearly 10 years ago. But speaking from Paris this week -- Baisden is now pursuing a new endeavor in professional modeling -- those moments are clearly not forgotten. She attributes her AAU experience as helping her create a life spent pursuing passions.

Importantly, she's held those lessons closely: Through the ups and the downs of her life, through navigating professional running, through maturing over adulthood and the new challenges that await from a different industry.

Baisden had perhaps the most established junior career of any young athlete to take to the AAU circuit. From the early 2000s until her last junior competition in 2013, she accumulated countless AAU Junior Olympic trophies and set age group records in the 200m and 400m nearly every year she competed. Such success stood out unlike any other AAU track and field athlete in history.

"I just felt like the more I immersed myself in that culture, that environment year after year, it was just inevitable that I was like, 'This is what I want to do with my life. I want to be able to experience this every year,'" she said.

Reflecting on those successes all these years later, Baisden has come upon some stark realizations. 

A Young Obsession With Track

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Baisden may have started competing in track meets in elementary school, but running didn't come as a first love. Rather, it was tennis that first grabbed her at a young age living in Michigan; she had aspirations to hopefully continue the sport at a high level as she grew older. 

It wasn't until an 8-year-old Baisden put a middle-aged coach to shame in suicide sprint drills at a Michigan State University summer tennis camp that she became curious about running competitively.

"When you're a kid and you find out you're good at something, you just want to try it, go after it," she said.

After much pestering from her younger self, Baisden's parents allowed her to join a local Catholic school team that had mailed out flyers looking for new team members. She quickly dominated the competition, even beating out eighth graders in championship meets as a fourth grade student. When the season ended, her coach recommended she join an AAU track team to continue building her training and potential over the summer months.

Baisden had never heard of AAU before, but those within the community immediately began to hear about her. It didn't take long for her to transition from the tennis courts to the oval.

She qualified for the AAU Junior Olympic Games in her first summer season. The young star instantly took to the 200m. And perhaps that isn't surprising. Baisden remembers thinking that it was every young girl's dream to compete in the sprints, looking to emulate the women they saw on television racing at the Olympics.

But when she decided to try her hand at the grueling 400m distance -- which she claims her coaches tricked her into doing -- it served as a game changer for her going forward in the sport.

"I was very much not into taking that route at all," she said. "I saw how long it was. I saw how people finished. But it was when I found the 400m that I really discovered what it means to find a passion and want to keep it in your life."

With each passing year came more age group records and more AAU titles. Baisden set records in everything from the 13-year-old 200m (24.03) to the 15-16-year-old all-time mark in the 400m (52.71).

Photo Credit: Kirby Lee/USA Today Sports

Track quickly became what Baisden termed 'an obsession' as she realized that she could hang with the collegians and pros, merely as a high schooler. She would lay out process goals for herself, rigorously train to hit those marks and hope that that would ultimately lead to reaching her greatest dreams of competing collegiately and professionally at a world-class level. 

The young girl still in high school had the preparatory mindset of a professional athlete, and wanted desperately to follow the blueprint drawn by the pros ahead of her who she toed the line against in national and world competitions. She ended her famed amateur career in 2013 with a slew of personal bests that rank among the best all-time high school performances, including a U.S. No. 13 all-time mark of 52.03 in the 400m -- there were also numerous Pan American and World Junior podium finishes she later earned. 

Baisden entered the next chapter of her track career feeling prepared for more feats to come.

Then she soon went on to check some of the highest goals on her list. The Detroit native moved out to Austin, Texas to compete for the University of Texas, garnering two third-place finishes in the 400m at the NCAA Indoor and Outdoor Track and Field Championships as a freshman; later, she earned a runner-up spot in the event a year later outdoors.

By the end of her sophomore year, Baisden felt ready to cross another goal off her checklist -- turning pro. The young Longhorn left school early and signed a contract with adidas in 2016.

What more could she achieve at 20?

She still had one more goal in her sights: Reaching the U.S. Olympic Trials and competing at the Olympics.

But here's where her road became a bit more tumultuous: The life of a professional athlete didn't come as easy. No longer did she have coaches to build her schedule, or her teammates to goof off with.

Photo Credit: Kirby Lee/USA Today Sports

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Once a pro, the sport's good-nature vanished behind the curtain of the business. 

It was up to Baisden to make her own decisions. It was up to her to discover her own strengths and weaknesses.

"When you start at a young age, you're in a system," Baisden said. "You follow the system and that's all you know. When you step out of the system and you're in a new environment and everything is on you and it becomes a business thing, it's really hard to operate that way."

Burnout plagued Baisden for much of her professional career, she said. Her 20s were harder than her teen years in the sport, and her mission to follow the self-termed 'professional runner's development model' became a confidence-destroying trek.

Looking back on it, the only self she knew, she said, was the one setting AAU records and winning world medals, decked out in a Detroit Country Day jersey and matching spandex shorts. She knew that version of herself couldn't stick around forever.

"You can put a lot of pressure on yourself because you start to think, 'Well, I have to be this type of runner because I was this type of runner when I was younger,'" Baisden said. "That's not always true. Sometimes that doesn't happen, and sometimes when you get older, you have to work harder at things that used to be easier for yourself."

Baisden grappled with the harsh reality of her track career, one defined by early success and later marked by ups-and-downs.

"You can put a lot of pressure on yourself because you start to think, 'Well, I have to be this type of runner because I was this type of runner when I was younger.' That's not always true. Sometimes that doesn't happen, and sometimes when you get older, you have to work harder at things that used to be easier for yourself."

But looking at it now, she says, she wishes she could tell a younger version of herself what she realized: The fun, the games and the friendly competition that come with the sport are fleeting. 

"I learned that I had a phenomenal amateur career, and one that I think I took for granted because it went by so fast," she said. "I was just so focused on trying to hit these goals instead of enjoying the time I was having as a junior athlete."

Finding A New Passion

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As 2020 rolled around, Baisden still remained focused on making an Olympic team.

She moved to Los Angeles to continue training, but she also soon found herself wanting to find new hobbies to go along with the grind of training. It wasn't until she took to the L.A. streets one day that she found herself approached by random strangers with an interesting proposition.

This isn't how it sounds: Those strangers were modeling agents, and they believed she had the chops to become a fashion model.  

"Modeling has been kind of like how track was for me," she said. "I just tried it and naturally I took to it and I took a love to it."

Soon enough, Baisden began playing around with the idea of modeling, even coordinating some casual shoots with old high school friends. Baisden did her first professional shoot wearing the looks of high-end fashion designer Thom Browne.

Modeling became a new competition for her. She traveled to New York Fashion Week and looked to book any shoot she could, despite the coronavirus pandemic creating uncertainty in the industry and putting a dent in her plans to compete at the Olympic Trials.

Oddly enough, athletics and modeling intersected in more ways than Baisden could have ever imagined.

"You really have to focus on your own lane, like in track," she said. "You have to focus on yourself. You have to focus on your purpose."

The year 2020 marked a time when the Olympic Games and athletics came to a halt.

But for Baisden, it was a year of reinvention.

She still found herself one day inside the famed Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum -- but not for a track event. Rather, she sported all-white spring outfits and classic looks as a feature model alongside Olympians Steele Johnson and Race Imboden in high-end designer Thom Browne's spring 2021 video fashion show. 

In a way, it was her shining moment on an Olympic stage -- all she did was trade in the athletic gear for high-fashion outfits.

 The Future

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Perhaps Baisden did check that final box on her career goals list.

She's in Paris now. She's doing photo shoots and other projects, working alongside other high-profile models.

Baisden admits she never anticipated taking this unlikely pro-athlete-turned-model path.

But it's where she is now. Often, Baisden takes moments to look back and reflect on those years of track and field. Each time that nostalgia hits, it brings her back to those pivotal moments, those years of AAU titles and championship races. 

While she experienced some of the pitfalls and difficulties of the sport at the highest levels, she has a career she can count on now -- and there's no telling where it could lead. 

In many ways, her success began with those AAU moments. 

Baisden said she realizes now that the purpose of her track and field career wasn't about checking off every box on that goals list.

Instead, it led her on another mission: To joyfully pursue a different passion. That one is modeling. 

"You grow up with these people in AAU and you watch them go in their separate directions," she said, "But at the end of the day you learn that although they're athletes, they're people and relationships matter in life."

And so, her time in AAU was a life lesson. Her experiences earning wins and setting national records won't be forgotten.

Here's a fact that can't be debated: Baisden was one of the most successful AAU athletes of all time.

"Being able to have that camaraderie, interact with people, cheer people on, see them develop and have them push you," she said, "Those I feel like have been my most joyful times in the sport."