Lanham Leads the Charge: Roos Sprinters Shine in 2025 Indoor Season

In the 2024 indoor track and field season, Kansas City finished seventh of the men's side at the end-of-year conference meet. Heading into this year's indoor track and field season, the Roos were pegged to come in sixth place on the men's side. The Roos took a key step forward in 2025 by closing out the season with a fifth place finish at the Summit League Indoor Championships and exceeding their preseason expectations.

The Roos year-by-year progression has been spotlighted by their talented group of men's sprinters, who earned a grand total of eight medals at the big conference meet. Leading the pack for the Roos was Tory Lanham, who grabbed himself three medals including a gold in the 200-meter dash and won Summit League Indoor Championship Men's Track MVP.

"I came into this past indoor season with the mindset that I was going to do well because of how I performed in the outdoor season last year. I wanted to compete for that MVP spot and put my all on the track and that's exactly what I did," Lanham said in an interview with Kansas City Athletics.

Lanham came into the indoor season as a Summit League 'Athlete to Watch' in the preseason and lived up to the billing early into the indoor season, running a 21.01 at the Alexis Jarrett Invitational back in January. The time instantly became the Roos new 200-meter men's indoor program record and put Lanham in prime position for more success.

"The first time, I ran a 21.01 at Mizzou. That gave me the motivation to keep going and lower that time to under 21 seconds," Lanham stated.

Less than a month later, Lanham bested his previous program record with an even better time of 20.93, becoming the only Summit League 200m runner to break the 21-second barrier and the first to do so in Kansas City school history. Lanham's consistency was a testament to his training and preparation off the track.

"Since last year, I've improved my sleep, nutrition, training and keeping a better mindset. All of that goes into how you perform on the track. I would say those improvements contributed the most to my success this season," Lanham said.

"I was training a lot of short-sprints but coach also threw in 400m workouts which helped me build more endurance and stay fast for the 200m and 4x400m. The training really helped me become more well-rounded for everything I had to do at conference," Lanham said.

At the 2025 Summit League Indoor Championships, Lanham took gold in the 200m with a time of 21.07 seconds. Furthermore, the MVP won the silver medal in the 60-meter dash due to a time of 6.82 seconds and ran the second leg of KC's silver medal 4x400-meter relay squad.

The sophomore sprinter is a KCMO native who graduated from Oak Park High School in 2023 before becoming a Roo. In high school, Lanham dealt with a series of setbacks that challenged him in several ways.

"I had a pretty untypical high school career. My sophomore year there wasn't a season due to the pandemic and my junior year I ended up fracturing my hip," Lanham said. "My senior year I got my 100m time down to 10.4 and so I started looking at schools to run at the collegiate level. UMKC was very close and they offered me a scholarship which I took."

Since arriving at KC, Lanham has been a massive part of an elite group of men's sprinters who have taken the Summit League by storm and led the charge towards the program's steady improvement. In just the 2025 indoor season alone, three men's indoor sprint records were broken including Lanham in the 200m, Stephen Clunis in the 60m and Jayden Henry in the 400m.

The Roos' gifted group of short-distance runners have an 'iron sharpens iron' mindset that has led to tremendous amounts of success for the men's sprinters. Additionally, the steady guidance of Head Coach Beanud Shirley and Assistant Coach Clif Mitchell has had a profound impact on Lanham and the entire team.

"It's been great training with them. Everybody pushes each other so hard. We work and move as a team and we keep our team morale high at all times. They do a lot for me and I wouldn't be able to have my success without them," Lanham stated.

"The coaches have put me in a great position to succeed here. They know what they're talking about because they've been doing this for so long. They know how to train their athletes and get them better, which you can see through how our team developed this season," Lanham said.

Coming off a fantastic indoor season, Lanham is hungry for more as the defending 200-meter Summit League outdoor champion will look to retain his crown and earn a time good enough to qualify for the regional and potentially national meets in May and June.

"For outdoor season this year, I want to get my 200m time down and make the regional meet. I want to win the 200m at conference again and have a spot on our 4x100m and 4x400m teams," Lanham said.

Lanham Leads the Charge: Roos Sprinters Shine in 2025 Indoor Season

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