A couple of weeks ago, Jordan Fife was one of 15 individuals inducted into the Indiana Track & Field and Cross Country Hall of Fame.

It was the 50th induction class, and Fife was featured in a group with Roy M. Conrad Sr., Abby Farley, Ed Glover, James Harper, Mark Harsha, Bethany Neely, Brittany Neely, Thom Smith, David Williams, David Woods and the 2013 Eastern (Greentown) 4×100 relay team.

It was held in the Idle Creek Golf Course Banquet Center in Terre Haute on June 24.

“It was a great honor,” Fife said. “The recognition of the work I put in over my 14-year career, just to get to a level that was recognizable like that was fun. It was special. It’s something that will be there as long as I live, so that’s cool.”

Fife had a remarkable career that started in Seymour, where he ran cross country and track and field from 1999 to 2002.

Fife’s first love was actually basketball — not surprising considering where he grew up — but it became clear with his size and stature that running might be a better route for a future than basketball.

“It wasn’t an overnight switch, but it was easy to see what was going to happen,” Fife said. “I was grateful for the years I had with basketball, but I ran well enough in high school to open four more years of running at the collegiate level.”

While running at Seymour High School under head coach John Chastain, Fife earned two trips each to the cross country and track and field state championships, culminating with an All-State finish in cross country his senior year.

Fife said his junior season was really his breakout year, and it only continued for his senior season.

“That cross country season my senior really came out of nowhere,” he said. “The year before, I was in the 90s in the state meet, I returned to the state meet and tried some things differently and completely surprised myself with that 25th-place finish.”

He ran the 3200 at state both junior and senior year for track. The All-State finish in cross country helped get his name out there, and when he graduated from SHS in 2002, he accepted a walk-on position at Indiana State University to run for John McNichols.

In the middle of his first fall at Indiana State, the Sycamores were having an off-campus practice when Fife felt a sharp pain in his chest. He stopped the workout early, but the bus the team used to get to the park that day was still a couple of miles away, so with the help of his teammates, Fife gutted it out and did a slow walk for a couple of miles to get back to the bus.

He went to the doctor, got some X-rays and discovered he had a collapsed lung.

“Looking back, I think it was a little bit too much too quickly training-wise and my body kind of broke down,” Fife said. “The other unfortunate part was unlike other running injuries, I couldn’t cross-train, either, because mine was a breathing thing with lungs.”

It was a lot of sitting around while trying to find his place in a DI program for the next few months.

Fife missed the second half of his cross country season and all of winter track season. He then came back during the spring of his freshman year, and that’s where Fife found his niche with the steeplechase.

During the rest of his time at Indiana State, he broke school records in the 1500, mile and 3000 and still holds the steeplechase record. He won five individual Missouri Valley Conference championships, was All-Conference 12 times, won the prestigious Drake Relays twice and earned two All-American certificates in the steeplechase with a ninth-place finish at the 2006 NCAA Championships.

When Fife’s collegiate career came to an end, he wasn’t quite ready for his running career to be over, either.

His success at Indiana State opened the door to join Team Indiana Elite, a newly formed post-collegiate training group in Bloomington under the direction of Dr. Robert Chapman.

“It was too good to pass up, especially for somebody who still wanted to see what was left in the tank and who wasn’t ready to join the real world yet,” Fife said. “I was fortunate all those things came together at once.”

While competing for Team Indiana Elite, Fife qualified and competed in the 2008 and 2012 Olympic Trials in the steeplechase.

“2008 was definitely for the experience. It was awesome to be a part of it, but certainly after that was over, 2012 became the focus,” Fife said. “We thought if things progressed well and I got stronger, I could have a chance to make the team.”

The four years of training went well for Fife leading up to 2012, but when the trials happened, it wasn’t meant to be on the day. Fife didn’t have a great prelim race and said it was tough to deal with.

As disappointed as he was to not make the Olympic team, he was grateful for the experience.

“It was all the journey, as well,” Fife said. “The places that took me, people I met and experiences I had was all worth it.”

During his training in 2008, Fife actually became the fourth individual from Indiana to run sub 4:00 for the mile.

“Probably a lot more people know me from that accomplishment than they do from the Olympic Trials,” Fife said.

The mile was always Fife’s secondary event, whether in high school when he preferred the 3200 or in college when he specialized in the steeplechase.

Fife ran a 4:06 mile in college, but breaking 4 minutes was never on his mind.

Fife entered an indoor mile during his training in 2008, didn’t have expectations for it and he ran a 4:02. He surprised himself, and that’s when he started to think it might be possible.

The very next week, they set up another race at Indiana University and Fife ran a 4:00.13. He thought, “Let’s do it again the next week,” so they did.

He went up to a meet at Notre Dame and ran a 3:59.75.

“I came from behind and stayed patient and had a big kick and got under 4 that day,” Fife said. “Had family there, former teammates there and got to celebrate with them. That kind of catapulted the rest of my career.”

Now that Fife’s running career is over, he is still in the sport. When he was training in Bloomington, he helped coach at Bloomington High School South, and that piqued his interest in coaching.

He has been the head coach of the women’s cross country and track and field programs at Missouri State University. This fall will start his 10th season at the helm of the DI program.

“I wanted to stay in the sport as much as possible, so I was fortunate to find this position and be in it for so long now,” Fife said. “I enjoy doing it, and it’s a sport that has given me so much, and my goal as a coach is to allow my athletes to have the same experiences as I did going through this system.”

He met his wife, Allison, after college, and she also was a runner who competed at Indiana University. They have three kids — a 10-year-old son Graham, 7-year-old daughter Elliot and 5-year-old daughter Finley.

Every now and again, the family does 1- to 2-mile races together for fun, but the parents aren’t forcing running onto any of their kids just yet.

“We know they will probably find it eventually, but we aren’t trying to force it on them,” Fife said.

Plus, if they ever want to learn about their dad, they can always visit the hall of fame in Terre Haute, where his career and legacy will forever be ingrained in this state.