Washington State University Athletics

Wayne Phipps, in his 11th year as the Director of Cross Country/Track & Field at Washington State University after an already highly successful coaching career on the Palouse. Phipps moved eight miles west from Moscow, Idaho to Pullman July 1, 2014, to become the 15th coach to take the reins of the Cougars men’s program and the second coach for the combined men’s and women’s program at WSU.
 
The 2021-22 season saw four freshman records fall and finished with a pair of first-team All-America performances (Valentina Barrios-Bornacelli and Mitch Jacobson) at the outdoor championships. Men’s cross country matched its best finish under coach Phipps at the Pac-12 Cross Country Championships last fall with a fifth-place team finish, while the women’s team placed seventh. Sam Brixey (60m hurdles) and Colton Johnsen (mile, 3000m) each competed at the NCAA Indoor Championships and a total of 20 individuals qualified and competed at the 2022 NCAA West Preliminary Round during the outdoor season. During a historic outdoor season, Jacob Englar (pole vault) become the ninth individual outdoor conference champion during coach Phipps’s tenure and Pac-12 Track Freshman of the Year Micaela De Mello lowered the program record in the 100m hurdles four different times during the spring. De Mello was one of six total Cougars to qualify for the outdoor championships and in doing so, earned USTFCCCA All-America recognition. 

The Cougars saw a number of notable program accomplishments from both the cross country squads and the track & field programs during the 2019-2020 seasons and played host to the 2019 NCAA Cross Country West Regional at the Colfax Golf Club (Colfax, WA).  The Washington State women went on to place ninth overall, and the men's squad turned in an impressive seventh place finish as well. Track & Field continued to compete at a high level during the 2020 indoor season, as five total student-athletes qualified for the 2020 NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships which included RayRay Wells Jr., Charisma Taylor, Sam Brixey, Kreete Verlin, and Leonie Reuter. These five were also named  2020 NCAA Division I Track and Field All-Americans as well.

For the past three seasons, the WSU men's cross country team has received an at-large berth to the NCAA Championships and twice have finished higher than the USTFCCCA national ranking entering the title meet. The 2016 squad, ranked No. 18 nationally, placed 14th, the highest finish by a WSU team in 32 years. In 2017, the No. 27 Cougars finished 24th while in 2015 WSU was ranked No. 25 and finished 26th.
 
The 2015 squad was led by junior John Whelan and sophomore Michael Williams who had second and third-place finishes, respectively, at the West Region meet. The WSU team, comprised mostly of freshmen recruited by Phipps, finished fourth in the highly-competitive West Region. The 2016 WSU men harriers took fifth place at the West Region meet with Williams, now a junior, and Whelan, now a senior, taking 17th and 18th places, respectively, and the pair repeated as All-Region honorees. Williams earned All-America honors with his 30th-place finish at the NCAA meet and became the first Cougar since Bernard Lagat and Eric Kamau in 1998 to become an All-American. Williams, a senior finished 12th and junior Chandler Teigen finished 20th at the West Region meet, both earning All-Region honors.
 
The 2017 cross country season brought honors to Vallery Korir on the women's team. Korir, a junior who transferred into WSU in January of 2017, earned All-America honors with her 33rd-place finish at the NCAA Championships. Korir became only the fourth woman in WSU women’s cross country history to earn All-America honors (top 40 individuals). She earned the at-large berth to the national meet after her 19th-place finish at the NCAA West Region and winning the Nuttycombe Open Race earlier in the Fall.
 
In three seasons of mentoring the distance corps, hurdlers and multi-events competitors in track and field, the Cougars also found success. In 2015, CharLee Linton ran the WSU women’s record in the 10,000m (34:03.69) at the Stanford Invite. At the Pac-12 Championships, Alissa Brooks-Johnson won the heptathlon title, Jesse Jorgensen won the men’s 800m title, Dino Dodig finished fifth in the decathlon, and a trio of Cougars scored 12 points in the women’s intermediate hurdles. During the 2015 indoor and outdoor seasons, 18 marks were either written into or moved up in the WSU all-time records top 10 lists.
 
In the 2016 T&F seasons, CJ Allen won his second Pac-12 intermediate hurdles title in three years and was joined by heptathlete Liz Harper as NCAA outdoor second-team All-Americans. The Cougars tallied 25 new entries into the WSU all-time records during the 2016 indoor and outdoor seasons including Linton’s 5000m indoor record time of 16:34.89i and Dino Dodig’s indoor heptathlon record of 5,635i points.
 
The 2017 indoor and outdoor seasons saw titles won by Liz Harper in the pentathlon at the MPSF Championships, Brock Eager in the hammer throw at the Pac-12 Championships, and Alissa Brooks-Johnson won her second Pac-12 heptathlon title and placed sixth at the NCAA Championships earning All-America honors. Eager and intermediate hurdler CJ Allen earned second team All-America honors at the NCAA Outdoor Championships.
 
During the past three track and field seasons, Phipps and his staff have mentored student-athletes to school top-ten performances 24 times in the indoor season and 47 times in the outdoor season.
 
Additionally, during Phipps' tenure at WSU, there have been conference all-academic honors awarded to WSU student-athletes 51 times in cross country, 88 times in indoor track and 86 times in outdoor track.
 
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. During that time, Phipps was honored 14 times as a conference coach of the year and led the Vandals to a record 16 total conference titles.
 
From 2000, Phipps guided an Idaho track and field/cross country program that was highly successful at the conference level producing seven individual cross country champions, 52 indoor track and field champions, and 117 outdoor champions. The Vandals claimed 23 conference athletes of the year awards, broke 15 conference records, qualified for the NCAA Championships 79 times, earning 45 NCAA All-American awards including two individual NCAA champions, nine individual NCAA runner-ups, and six individual third-place finishes. During this time Idaho athletes set 30 indoor school records, 23 outdoor records, and at least one school record has fallen every year during Phipps’ tenure. As a team, Idaho finished in the top 25 in the nation 11 times in track & field including highs of 16^th for the women and 17^th for the men; and once in cross country.
 
During Phipps’ head coaching tenure, the Vandals produced five Olympians, two World Track and Field Championship finalists, and one World Cross Country Championship participant. Phipps currently coaches former Vandal All-American Angela Whyte, who is a two-time Olympian, six-time World Championship participant and a two-time World Championship finalist. Whyte finished sixth at the 2004 Athens Olympic Games in the 100m hurdles and sixth at the 2013 World Track and Field Championships in the 100m hurdles. He has coached two-time Olympian and World Championship finalist Tawanda Chiwira, former WSU NCAA All-American and world-ranked hurdler Arend Watkins, and Olympian Sherwin James.
 
Additionally, Idaho had a very strong academic reputation with yearly honorees among the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association Division I All-Academic Teams in both men’s and women’s cross country and track and field. Since 2005, five Idaho track and field athletes have earned the Western Athletic Conference’s prestigious Stan Bates Award as the top male or female student-athlete in the conference, and the team’s athletes have been recognized with a combined 490 WAC All-Academic honors.
 
Phipps began his coaching career in his hometown of Prince George, British Columbia, with the Prince George Track and Field Club. During that time, he coached several provincial and national medalists and champions. As an athlete, Phipps was a three-year letterwinner in basketball and a four-year letterwinner in track and cross country at D.P. Todd Secondary. He also competed for the Prince George Track and Field Club where he was coached by his father, Ron.
 
Phipps competed for the University of Montana and the University of British Columbia, where he graduated with a degree in exercise science in 1991. He earned his 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.

 
Team Conference Titles
2000 Big West Men’s Outdoor Track & Field
2001 Big West Men’s Outdoor Track & Field
2001 Big West Women’s Outdoor Track & Field
2002 Big West Women’s Cross Country
2003 Big West Women’s Outdoor Track & Field
2005 WAC Women’s Cross Country
2007 WAC Women’s Cross Country
2010 WAC Women’s Cross Country
2011 WAC Women’s Cross Country
2012 WAC Men's Indoor Track & Field
2012 WAC Men's Outdoor Track & Field
2012 WAC Women’s Cross Country
2013 WAC Women’s Cross Country
2014 WAC Men's Indoor Track & Field
2014 WAC Men’s Outdoor Track & Field
2014 WAC Women’s Outdoor Track & Field
 
Individual Coaching Honors
2000 Big West Men’s Track & Field Coach of the Year
2001 Big West Men’s Track & Field Coach of the Year
2002 Big West Women’s Cross Country Coach of the Year
2005 WAC Women’s Cross Country Coach of the Year
2007 WAC Women’s Cross Country Coach of the Year
2010 WAC Women’s Cross Country Coach of the Year
2011 WAC Women’s Cross Country Coach of the Year
2012 WAC Men's Indoor Track & Field Coach of the Year
2012 WAC Men's Outdoor Track & Field co-Coach of the Year
2012 WAC Women's Cross Country Coach of the Year
2013 WAC Women's Cross Country Coach of the Year
2014 WAC Men’s Indoor Track & Field Coach of the Year
2014 WAC Men's Outdoor Track & Field Coach of the Year
2014 WAC Women's Outdoor Track & Field Coach of the Year