WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Ohio -- It’s a hot day on the base track as the photographer checks his settings and composes the shot. He yells “go” and our subject launches from all fours with jackrabbit acceleration.
Eight very quick, pounding strides later the side-to-side shoulder rocking stops, eyes rise from feet to foreground, and the runner is booking. Head and torso are now almost magically still as hands knife through the air while his long stride chews up the thirty-ish meters of track between start line and camera. There’s no stopwatch on this day, but in less than a four-count our photographer needs to swerve like a matador to avoid being steamrolled. Dude is fast.
And just as the runner hits his full stride, it’s time to decelerate. This is a photoshoot, not a race. So instead of flying over a finish line, he cuts the run short, turns around, and walks back for another take.
He is Brian Banks. He’s one of the fastest 40-year-olds on the planet. And he’s an Air Force Reserve chaplain currently assigned to the 88th Air Base Wing Chaplain Corps.
“I never ran track before in my entire life until January last year,” recollects the chaplain.
Captain Brian Banks has a competitive sport background as an all-state high-school soccer player and a single walk-on year with the University of Central Florida football team. No track. As an added narrative, he also never wanted to join the Air Force or be associated with the church.
“I was young and dumb, that's part of it,” muses Banks. “Both my parents were in the military. My dad passed away when I was five and my mom was in the Air Force for 28 years. That was the life that I knew, and I wanted something different. We loosely went to church and all I remember is just wanting to fall asleep. I wanted nothing to do with it. So I got a job and made sure I worked every Sunday.”
Maturity brought both a different perspective and a return to his roots. Brian Banks became a Chaplain Candidate in 2017 and a full Chaplain in 2020.
“It was a calling. There's just absolute fulfillment.”
He even married back into the Air Force. His wife is an active-duty nurse stationed at Wright-Patt. The track stuff came last.
“In the fall of ’23, we wanted to get our kids into cross country just to do something active.”
Cross country running led to a track and field club. And parenting led to coaching.
“I would see all these parents on their phones just sitting there waiting on their kids for two hours and…,” Banks shrugs and smiles. “I can’t do that. I started to help the kids with the drills. I had no idea what I was doing, but I was like whatever coach is saying, I'm just gonna encourage the kids to keep moving forward.”
While the club catered to minors, it also fielded a Masters track team. These are athletes aged 35 and older who compete in five-year age groups. Chaplain Banks’ combination of commitment, enthusiasm, and fitness drew the eye of the coaching staff, so they convinced him to try out for the team.
“I just show up in a T-shirt and shorts. I get up there and lace up my shoes. The gun goes off and I just fly,” recalls Banks. “You kind of heard like a gasp and I end up winning that race. Then the coach came up to me and he's like, ‘take off your shirt. Here's a jersey. You're on our team now.’”
The tryout led to the Midwest Regionals where Banks broke the meet record for the 200-meter in his first race and missed silver in the 60-meter dash by 1/100th of a second.
“So I was like ‘OK, we're gonna try and take it serious.’”
Multiple Midwest events, and multiple medals, eventually earned him a trip to the USA Track and Field Masters 2025 Indoor Nationals where Chaplain Banks took home a bronze in the 60-meter. The following month as a member of Team USA, he finished sixth in the World Masters Indoor Championships.
For context, the world record for the men’s 60-meter dash was set in 2018 when Christian Coleman ran it in 6.34 seconds. Coleman was a 22-year-old professional sprinter at the time.
Brian Banks ran the 60 in 7.24 seconds. He was 42 with about a year of part-time training under his belt and some room for improvement.
“I learned at the championships that I wasn't even getting set up in the blocks correctly,” he explains. “It wasn't until I'm surrounded by other world class athletes that I saw how to really load into the blocks. I would just walk up, put my feet on the blocks, and go.”
The captain succeeded despite the technical deficiencies through a combination of God-given speed and a fierce competitive spirit.
“My daughter said, ‘Daddy looks like he's gonna kill somebody when he gets out there,’” muses the currently affable Chaplain. “I have this saying, ‘stay in your yard.’ I don't lock eyes with anybody. There are guys that will get out there and fist bump. I’ll bump, but I won’t look at your face. I don't look at anything but the lane in front of me. I just focus on getting there faster than anybody else.”
It’s an interesting dichotomy. Out of uniform and playing sports, he’s a detached and combative warrior. In uniform and on a military base, he’s an open and welcoming source of solace and smiles.
“We are in the people business. We wanna make sure that business is good which means that the people are good,” quips our yin and yang Captain. “I really love connecting with people and hearing their story. I encourage, empower, and do whatever to support people in their journey whether they are spiritual or not. You may not agree with them. You may see things differently, but they still matter.”
Encouragement, empowerment, and support. Unless you’ve assumed the starting position in the next lane, then Chaplain Banks will be waiting for you at the finish line.