Grand Rapids, Michigan - Xavier McCallum, the son of Katie Adams and Ernie McCallum, has signed his national letter of intent to continue his academic and athletic career at Aquinas College. McCallum, who recently graduated from Byron Center High School, became the twelfth signee of the 2024-25 recruiting class for the Aquinas College men's cross country and track & field programs.

McCallum stated, "Those who wait for the right to time fall short to the ones who do it no matter the time."

Xavier, whose hobbies include working out, building things, and exploring, has posted a personal best of 49.79 in the 400 meters.  Xavier and his Byron Center teammates recently placed second (3:16.19) in the 4x400 meter relay at the Division One State Finals. The Bulldogs also won the OK Green title and placed third at their Regional Championship. McCallum concluded his career capturing All-Conference accolades on three different occasions and was both an Indoor & Outdoor All-State performer.

Chris Paciencia, the sprints coach at Byron Center High School added, "Since his freshman year, Xavier has probably put in the most work of any athlete I've coached.  He never missed practice, always pushed himself to exhaustion, joined our Indoor Track Club, started taking our schools lifting class, went to almost every off season workout,  joined our cross country team his senior year and would ask me for specific banded and non banded drills that he could work on over the summers to better his form. This kid deserves everything coming his way." 

Xavier has three siblings named Zoe, Knox, and Nash and he is undecided about a field of study at Aquinas College.

Aquinas' associate head coach Kevin Winne commented, "We are thrilled to be adding Xavier to our long sprints group at Aquinas. Xavier is a talented athlete who I believe will help push our already strong 400 group to become even stronger. I look forward to watching Xavier develop over these next four years as a student athlete and as a person."