Washington State cutting parts of its track and field program

Track is on its own at Washington State University — and in abridged form, too.

The school has announced that field events will be eliminated from the program’s offerings, and that sprints and hurdles will be scaled back in favor of a “distance-focused approach.”

“This change gives the WSU Track and Field program the best opportunity to remain competitive at the conference and national levels in distance events in cross country, indoor track and field and outdoor track and field,” read a statement issued by the school Monday afternoon.

WSU athletic director Anne McCoy and director of track and field and cross country Wayne Phipps refused to make themselves available Monday to provide details on the cuts to the program — historically, if not recently, one of the school’s most successful athletic endeavors. The two met with track and field athletes earlier in the day.

The terse, two-paragraph release said that any impacted athletes “will have their scholarships honored should they choose to remain at WSU.

“WSU understands the significant impact this decision has on Cougar student-athletes, coaches and fans.”

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What it does is gut a program that’s responsible for one of two NCAA team championships won by the school — indoor track and field in 1977 and boxing in 1937.

It’s also the first announced cut to scholarship offerings — and possibly coaching staff — since 10 members of the Pac-12 departed in August 2024 and the conference television money for the remaining schools, WSU and Oregon State, took a massive hit. A reconstituted Pac-12 is in the process of negotiating a television deal to begin in the 2026-27 school year, with what will be a significantly reduced payout.

The school’s statement did not address how many track/cross country scholarships the school will offer in the future, how much in savings will be realized, whether other sports will face scholarship or roster hits and the status of assistant coaches.

Previously, NCAA schools were allowed to award track and field rides in the equivalent of 12.6 men and 18 women. Under the recent House vs. NCAA settlement, caps will only exist on roster size — 45 for each gender — and scholarships can be awarded to all, though how many will be dependent on a school’s financial muscle.

Sources indicated WSU track was already facing a scholarship reduction even before the Monday announcement.

The House settlement is expected to cut deeply into Olympic and non-revenue sports on campuses, as direct payments to athletes figure to come mostly in football and basketball.

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For WSU’s 2025 season, field event athletes accounted for 31 of 89 roster spots, with sprinters and hurdlers another 18. Among the 30 Cougars who qualified for NCAA regional competition, there were nine distance runners, 10 sprinters and hurdlers and 11 field event athletes.

But before the breakup of the Pac-12, five of WSU’s last seven men’s champions and seven of the last eight women’s champs came from the field events. Twenty of the school’s 45 track Olympians have been jumpers, throwers and multi-event athletes.

The school’s track tradition has always been heavily invested in the distance races, beginning with the arrival of Spokane’s Gerry Lindgren on campus in 1964 and the eight NCAA championships he won. Coach John Chaplin’s Kenyan pipeline brought the likes of world record setter Henry Rono, Olympic gold medalist Julius Korir and multiple-medalist Bernard Lagat.

Phipps has revived that connection in the last few years, notably with Evans Kurui, who recently finished fifth in the NCAA 10,000 and won the West Coast Conference title last fall. Even so, the Cougars finished third in both WCC men’s and women’s races behind Portland and Gonzaga.

WSU’s last top-half finish in Pac-12 track — since the 2011 expansion — was in 2015 for women and 2009 for the men.

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