American Cyclists Mourn Two Milligan University Racers

The tight-knit community of American bicycle racers is mourning the deaths of two collegiate athletes following a deadly collision with a driver on August 19 in rural Tennessee.

According to multiple reports, 11 cyclists from the Milligan University collegiate cycling team were on a training ride in northeast Tennessee when a driver plowed his car into them. The Tennessee Highway Patrol responded to an urgent call after the collision and found two of the cyclists dead and seven others injures.

Milligan University identified the two deceased victims as Haylan Engdahl and Brayden Rogers, both second-year students at the school.

“I would like to invite the entire community into prayer with us, into grief with the families, with us, and into deep prayer for the families of those we have lost,” university President Stephen Waers said in a statement published online.

As the news quickly spread on social media, American cyclists and collegiate cycling teams  expressed their shock and sadness about the news. Instagram tributes were published by college teams at Lees-McRae University, Fort Lewis College, Marian University, and by USA Cycling, the sport’s national governing body.

In Europe, professional cyclist Megan Jastrab, a Milligan graduate and Olympic bronze medalist, learned about the tragedy as she was preparing for a professional race in Belgium.

“I’m absolutely heartbroken,” Jastrab told Outside. “Loss like that is something you really can’t fathom. There are no words that can sum up what the Milligan community is feeling right now.”

An Arrest and an Accusation

On August 20, officials in Carter County, Tennessee published an arrest affidavit in the wake of the collision. The document accused the driver, John Alexander Benfield, 69, of five counts of aggravated assault by vehicle and two counts of vehicular homicide.

The document cited Mason Bowen, a trooper with the Tennessee State Patrol, who was the first to arrive on the scene. In the document, Bowen said that Benfield’s car smelled of marijuana after the collision. The affidavit said that Benfield never slowed down or attempted to avoid the cyclists before he hit them.

“His failure to maintain sufficient following distance and control to safely react to the bicyclists occupying the roadway, his subsequent collision with the group of bicyclists, the serious and critical injuires resulting from the collision, I believe Mr. Benfield operated his vehicle with a reckless perceive or disregard for the safety of others,” Bowen wrote in his report. 

According to the affidavit, Benfield was driving behind another car in the outside lane of the highway. The car ahead moved into the inside lane to accommodate the pack of cyclists, but Benfield continued in the outside lane, eventually striking the group.

The incident occurred on Highway 19E, a hilly road that passes through wooded rural areas in Carter County.

“I’ve lost count how many times I trained on those same roads,” Jastrab said.

A School That Values Cycling

Jastrab, 24, has deep roots in the Milligan cycling community. Before becoming one of America’s professional racers, she was the star of the Milligan collegiate cycling team from 2019 until graduating in 2023.

The private Christian university with an undergraduate population of around 900 students is located near Johnson City, Tennessee, about an hour north of Asheville, North Carolina. The nearby hills and mountains are ideal for cycling.

Jasbrab told Outside that the Milligan cycling program played an integral role in her development as a professional racer. She grew up in Southern California as a cycling prodigy, winning multiple junior national titles. Rather than jump headfirst into the professional ranks as a teenager, she decided to attend Milligan University and pursue degrees in exercise physiology and business, while also racing.

Milligan University allowed her to pursue both.

“Cycling became my job while I was doing university, but I could race on the collegiate team and have a lot of fun,” she said. “It allowed me to balance the pressure of trying to qualify for the Olympics while reminding me that I like to race my bike because it’s fun.”

Jastrab’s professional cycling career took off her Freshman year, and by the end of the year she was eyeing the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo. The school allowed her to take classes remotely while she traveled across the globe in preparation for the Games.

“Milligan allowed me to balance school and professional cycling at the same time,” she said.

Jastrab also raced for the Milligan college cycling team.

College cycling has traditionally been an entry point for American bike racers. Historically, college cycling programs were club sports, and not varsity programs with scholarship money. Milligan, however, is one of a handful of colleges where the cycling team does award scholarships, and attracts talented youngsters who dream of one day racing the Tour de France.

Jastab was on scholarship, but she said the Milligan team was just as inviting to newcomers as it was to budding professionals.

“It was such a welcoming atmosphere for new cyclists,” she said. “You could go out and do group rides with the team. There was a bike house with mountain bike trails and a cyclocross track. The team would do trips to nearby parks that were open to cyclists of all levels. The team did a great job of showing kids what cycling is for, which is to have fun, be active, and make community.”

Rather than function as a cutthroat team, the Milligan cycling program emphasized fun. Jastrab compared the team to a family, and said she made lifelong friends during her time there.

That’s just one of the reasons why the tragedy is going to have a tremendous impact on the school and its wider community, Jastrab said.

“It’s so small that you know everybody there,” she said. “You don’t just have your friends on the cycling team. It’s the whole campus that will feel this loss.”

“I feel the loss and I’m all the way over here in Europe,” she added.