Washington State University Athletics

Julie Taylor joined the Washington State University track and field coaching staff in July 2014 after a long and highly successful career as both a coach and a student-athlete at the University of Idaho.
 
In the three years coaching the throwers, Taylor has mentored Cougars to ten marks written into the WSU All-Time Top 10 lists.
 
In her first year at WSU, without any of her own recruits competing yet, Taylor’s throwers scored 15 points at the Pac-12 Track & Field Championships. In her second season, Taylor spent much of the outdoor season working on techniques with redshirt throwers but saw success in competition from transfer Katie Wardsworth, and returning throwers Kelsie Taylor, Brock Eager, Travis Pickett and Brad Stevens. Wardsworth had the fifth-best WSU throw in the hammer of 182-4 (55.58m), and eighth-best weight throw all-time of 54-0i (16.64m). Eager had a weight throw that was seventh-best in WSU records of 63-2 3/4i (19.27m) and then redshirted during the outdoor season. At the Pac-12 Championships, Taylor took fifth in the javelin while Stevens was sixth in the men’s javelin and Pickett was eighth in the hammer.
 
The 2017 indoor season found Eager's 35-pound weight throw distance of 66-8 1/2i (20.33m) move up to third-best all-time while Wardsworth move up to seventh in the weight throw with a toss of 58-7 1/2i (17.87m) and Aoife Martin's throw of 52-4 1/2i (15.96m) was ninth-best. Moving outdoors, Eager threw the hammer 225-3 (68.66m), fourth-best in school records. Eager went on to win the Pac-12 hammer title and finished 14th at the NCAA Championships, earning All-America second team honors. Adam Mahama tossed a discus mark of 189-7 (57.79m) for eighth-best at WSU. Atina Kamasi threw the javelin a freshman school record of 171-8 (52.32m) for third on the WSU list while Kelsey Kehl's javelin throw of 160-0 (48.76m) was ninth-best all-time. Wardsworth heaved the hammer 191-3 (58.29m), fourth in WSU records and Martin's hammer throw of 178-11 (54.53m) is seventh-best.
 
Taylor led the Idaho competitors to unprecedented levels of success in her 20 years as an assistant coach in charge of the Vandals’ throws program before being promoted to Head Track & Field Coach in 2011.
 
A very accomplished thrower herself, Taylor held Idaho outdoor school records in both the shot put and discus when she graduated in 1986. Since that time, her student-athletes have broken and re-broken every Idaho throws record and Taylor saw her own name bumped out of the Idaho record book in 2011. She holds an incredible distinction in Idaho’s history in that she coached every single competitor who has made an entry in Idaho’s all-time top-10 in the women’s shot put, discus, hammer throw and javelin throw.
 
During Taylor’s time at Idaho, Vandal throwers qualified for the NCAA Championships 48 times and won two NCAA titles, 26 Western Athletic Conference titles, eight Big West Conference titles, nine Big Sky Conference titles and have claimed 28 All-America honors. At least one school record in the throws has fallen at Idaho in eight of her final nine seasons.
 
Notable highlights from Taylor’s coaching career include the 2008 outdoor season when Idaho was the only men’s NCAA program to have four competitors hit the 200-foot mark in the hammer throw. Taylor’s group of Marcus Mattox (208-2), James Rogan (203-2), Matt Wauters (203-1) and Russ Winger (202-3) all achieved the feat in one competition over the span of a couple hours in April of that year. The Vandal men won the team title at the 2012 WAC Outdoor Track & Field Championships with a contribution of three individual titles and 68 points from the men’s throwers.
 
Taylor’s top men’s pupil was Winger, who competed from 2004-08 and was one of the most versatile collegiate throwers of his era. He is just the second man in NCAA history to hit 65 feet in both the shot put and weight throw in the same indoor season, achieving the feat in both 2007 and 2008. Additionally, in 2008 Winger was the only man to qualify for the NCAA Outdoor Championships in the shot put, discus throw and hammer throw, although he chose not to compete in the hammer to focus the other two events.
 
Taylor also coached the first and only individual NCAA champion in Idaho women’s athletics history, Katja Schreiber, who won the 2001 national title in the discus with a school-record heave of 197-11.
 
As a standout thrower for the Vandals from 1983-86, Taylor, a native of Onaway, Idaho, broke both the shot put and discus school records and earned three All-Big Sky Conference honors. She scored points at every Big Sky meet during her career and still ranks 31st in Idaho history in all-time outdoor conference scoring at 28 points.
 
Taylor is married to another all-time great Vandal thrower, Tim Taylor, who was a volunteer assistant throws coach at Idaho and has continued to volunteer at WSU. They have one son, Alex, who threw at the University of Idaho, and one daughter, Kelsey, who was an all-WAC performer for the Idaho volleyball team from 2007-10 and working as a physical therapist.