Wayne Phipps (University of British Columbia '91) become the 15th coach to take the reins of the Washington State men's program and the second coach for the combined men's and women's program at WSU on July 1, 2014...Phipps had been the University of Idaho's Director and Track & Field/Cross Country from 2010 through 2014, and was a coach with the Vandals program for a total of 19 years...he served as co-head coach from 2000-09, after serving as an assistant coach from 1995-99... while at Idaho, Phipps was honored 14 times as a conference coach of the year and led the Vandals to a record 16 total conference titles...he also holds a masters of science from the University of Oregon in exercise and movement science, with a sports medicine major and minors in biomechanics and exercise physiology.

Allix Potratz-Lee joined the WSU track and field coaching staff in July 2014 after an outstanding career as a student-athlete and coach at the University of Idaho... member of the Idaho cross country/track and field coaching staff starting in 2010 as an assistant to Wayne Phipps, working primarily with the distance corps...Vandals' women's cross country team won WAC team titles in 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013.. she was a five-time WAC champion, a 10-time first-team all-WAC honoree and a two-time ESPN/CoSIDA Academic All-American...she helped Idaho cross country capture the 2005 and 2007 XC team titles,and claimed the 2008 individual WAC cross country crown.

Six women and two men from WSU were among the 75 women and 60 men selected to the 2015 Pac-12 Cross Country All-Academic teams...women's first team included Amanda Henderson (senior, Pullman, Wash.) for the seocnd year...Henderson has a 3.87 GPA majoring in psychology...also on the 10-member first team was Steffie Pavey (junior, Old Town, Idaho) with a 3.98 GPA majoring in accounting...Devon Bortfeld (sophomore, Sammamish, Wash. - 3.75 GPA, undeclared major) was named to the women's 10-member second team...Cougar women named to the honorable mention team were: Emily Dwyer (senior, Sammamish, Wash.), a psychology major with a 3.35 GPA; Alexys Garcia (junior, Pullman, Wash.), majoring kinesiology with a 3.43 GPA; and Morgan Willson (redshirt sophomore, Colfax, Wash.), a management and operations major with a 3.41 GPA...WSU's Alex Simpson (junior, Asotin, Wash.) a journalism and media production major with a 3.60 GPA was named to the men's second team...John Whelan (junior, Etna, Calif. - 3.11 GPA, biology major) was named to the men's honorable mention team...to be eligible for selection to the academic team, a student-athlete must have a minimum 3.0 overall grade point average and be either a starter or significant contributor.