‘He’s just different’: How Auburn all-timer Ja’Kobe Tharp found the uncanny ability to rise to any occasion
Tharp chases his fourth national title this week at the NCAA Outdoor Championship — and hopes to lead Auburn to the program's first ever team national championship.
Auburn sprints coach Ken Harnden imagines God on the assembly line, sending all the people He’s created down to Earth.
Ja’Kobe Tharp, Harnden figures, has an X-factor — something different, some unshakeable confidence that allows him to rise to the occasion in the most nerve-wracking moments — which most God’s creations don’t have.
“The intangibles and the work ethic and the ability to run straight into the danger are pretty special,” Harnden said of Tharp. “(It’s like) if you went through the conveyor belt and God said, ‘Keep moving, keep moving, keep moving — Blessed!’” he laughed. That would be moment this intangible was instilled into Tharp.
“And then He said, ‘Keep moving,’ for another two billion people.”
More simply put, Tharp has ‘it.’
Whatever ‘it’ is, ‘it’ has helped Auburn’s junior sprint hurdler win three NCAA national championships already in his career, and four SEC championships. This week, Tharp goes for a fourth national title at the NCAA Outdoor Championships starting Wednesday in Eugene, Ore. — and he plans with 10 points to help lead the Auburn men into contention for the grandest prize in collegiate track and field, the NCAA team title.
“Ja’Kobe’s one of those athletes who, when the light’s brightest and the stakes are highest, he steps it up,” head coach Leroy Burrell put it earlier this spring.
Point proven: Among the reasons Tharp is one of the most accomplished athletes on Auburn’s campus — and why he’s a top prospect to compete for Team USA at the 2028 Olympics — are the records he holds. Tharp this spring broke the collegiate indoor 60-meter record time set by all-time hurdler Grant Holloway, and outdoors in the 110-meter hurdles, Tharp earlier in his Auburn career broke the national under-20 record time which was set by Renaldo “Skeets” Nehemiah in 1978, and which had stood for 46 years.
Tharp broke Holloway’s record in March at the NCAA Indoor Championships, running a 7.32 — when the lights were brightest, like Burrell said. It was in his freshman year in 2024 at the SEC Outdoor Championships — his first chance to win a major collegiate title in the 110-meter hurdles — that Tharp stepped up and broke Nehemiah’s long-standing record in 13.18 seconds.
“I think that’s the competitive nature,” Burrell said. “You know, he’s just different like that.”
‘Never let off the gas’
As for meeting Tharp — a 6-foot-4 former basketball player from Murfreesbroro, Tenn. — he has the humility to answer with “yes sir” and “no sir,” and he has the patience to explain some of the nuances in his sport.
But the confidence is there. The swagger is there.
He’ll tell you firsthand that he’s going to be a major problem for the hurdlers of the world.
“Any time it’s a big meet, my heart racing — and I know what I did throughout the season, I worked hard — I’m ready,” Tharp said. “I just go in there with utmost confidence that nobody can beat me. That’s just something I carry.”
Tharp collegiate championships
2024 SEC Outdoor Champion (110-meter hurdles)
2025 SEC Indoor Champion (60-meter hurdles)
2025 NCAA Indoor Champion (60-meter hurdles)
2025 NCAA Outdoor Champion (110-meter hurdles)
2026 SEC Indoor Champion (60-meter hurdles)
2026 NCAA Indoor Champion (60-meter hurdles)
2026 SEC Outdoor Champion (110-meter hurdles)
Yes, his blistering 13.05 is one of the fastest outdoor times runs this year in 2026 — not just collegiately, but in the world.
Florida State alum Trey Cunningham earlier this week set the new top time for 2026 in Rome with a slightly wind-aided — but still wind-legal — 12.98 at an international meet in Italy. He’s one of the major players in sprint hurdles who’ll contend for the Team USA spots at the 2028 Olympics, all chasing reigning Olympic gold medalist Grant Holloway.
Earlier this year in the indoor season, in February, Auburn went to Clemson’s Tiger Paw Invitational, and in the preliminary heats, there in the lane next to Tharp, was Cunningham. Cunningham’s done at Florida State, but competed in that meet to get a race in as an invited professional.
Seeing Cunningham there lit something inside Tharp, and Tharp beat him with a 7.454 to Cunningham’s 7.455.
“What really changed my whole entire career was, I lose state my sophomore year of high school — and I truly believe I lost because I was winning all day at these normal, regular meets, and I stopped training as hard, because I’m like, ‘Oh yeah I’m that guy, you guys can’t beat me, whatever, blah, blah, blah,’” Tharp explained.
Losing that day, Tharp learned the biggest meets require the most from him — and since then, he’s carried that mentality that showtime is go time.
“My junior year after losing I came back really hard, started training super hard, and I’ve never let off the gas since,” he said.
Murfreesboro to Auburn
Harnden went to watch Tharp play basketball back in those days at Rockvale High School in Murfreesboro.