Track and Field
- Title:
- Director of Track & Field and Cross Country
- Email:
- wes.kittley@ttu.edu
- Phone:
- (806) 834-4592
At Texas Tech...Â
2 Team National Championships - Men 2019 outdoor, 2024 indoor
2023 USTFCCCAÂ Hall of Fame Class
34Â NCAA Champions
222Â Big 12 Champions - 124 outdoor, 98Â indoor
12Â Big 12 Team Championships
14Â Olympians
8 Olympic Medalists
10 Top-5 NCAA Team Finishes
24Â Top-10 NCAA Team Finishes
Wes Kittley is entering his 26th season at the helm in 2024-25 - the longest tenured coach in Texas Tech Athletics history. On Aug. 11, 2023, Kittley and Texas Tech agreed to a new seven-year deal.
Kittley's 25th season in 2023-24 was highlighted by the men's indoor track and field team winning the 2024 NCAA Indoor Championship in Boston at the TRACK at New Balance. The Red Raiders captured their first indoor title scoring 50.5 points, producing three individual titles in Terrence Jones (60m, 200m) and Caleb Dean (60m hurdles). In the 60m sprint, a trio of Red Raiders scored first, third and sixth for a total of 19 points. Prior to the NCAA meet, Tech caputured back-to-back indoor titles, tallying 152 points. The women's side produced a triple jump national champion in Ruta Lasmane, while Temitope Adeshina finished fourth in the high jump. During the outdoor season, the women finished seventh in the country as the men finished 13th. In the 100m sprint, Rosemary Chukwuma finished third, as Anne-Suzanna Fosther-Katta and Ruta Lasmane finished fourth and eighth in the triple jump. In the high jump, Adeshina claimed third. On the men's side, Caleb Dean won the 400m hurdles in record fashion with teammate Oskar Edlund placing fifth. The 10k race saw freshman Ernest Cheruiyot finish fourth.
The 2023 season saw the men's squad finish 5th indoor and capped off the season finishing 6th. On the women's side, the team finished inside the top-25, placing 24th indoors and 25th outdoors. Terrence Jones captured the 2023 NCAA 60m indoor title, making him Tech's first national champion in the event. Meanwhile, Courtney Lindsey had a stellar final season as a Red Raider claiming the 100m title outdoors and finished as the national-runner up in the 200m. All said, the 18 Red Raiders were crowned champions between indoor and outdoor season as the men claimed the Big 12 indoor and outdoor titles. Tech scored 179 points in the outdoor win, setting a new Big 12 record.Â
Kittley's crew continued to reach new heights in 2022 as both men and women finished inside the top 10 at the end of the outdoor season. The Red Raiders were one of four teams in the country to accomplish such feat. The women's program led the way finishing 7th, while the men's side placed 9th. Kittley, who coaches the 800m runners, saw Moad Zahafi capture the NCAA Outdoor 800m title by season's end. Overall, between the indoor and outdoor season, 19 Red Raiders were named 1st Team All-Americans. Both Tech programs placed 2nd indoor and outdoor at each Big 12 meet as a total of 17 Red Raiders were crowned Big 12 Champions (11 indoor, 6 outdoor).Â
In 2021, the Red Raiders opened the indoor season in Lubbock and stayed there all the way through March, until they left for Fayetteville, Ark., for the NCAA Indoor Championships. Texas Tech hosted the conference meet which saw four Red Raiders become champions, three on the men’s side – Jacolby Shelton (60m), Sven Cepus (600 yard) and Takieddine Hedeilli (1000m). On the women’s side, Ruth Usoro captured the triple jump title as she would go on to win the event at the NCAA indoor and Big 12, NCAA outdoor meets. Courtney Lindsey (100m) and Gabe Oladipo (discus) saw first-place finishes at the conference outdoor meet.
The men's team placed second at the Big 12 indoors, coming nine points shy of first while the women's team placed fourth. At the outdoors, the women's team finished third as the men finished fifth.Â
The 2020 season saw the Red Raiders compete in eight regular season meets before outdoor season was cancelled due to the COVID 19 pandemic. At the Big 12 Indoor Championships, Kittley’s squad produced five individual winners with four coming on the women’s side – Chinne Okoronkno (pole vault), Seasons Usual (weight throw), Ruth Usoro (triple jump), and Gabrielle McDonald (60m hurdles). On the men’s side, Takieddine Hedeilli captured the 1000m and mile titles. Both teams finished second overall as the men were just 11 points short of first place.
Texas Tech Director of Track & Field and Cross Country Wes Kittley created history on June 7, 2019, when his Red Raiders claimed the first NCAA Championship in the history of men's athletics at Tech. The title came in his 20th season in Lubbock. The West Texas native was the perfect candidate for West Texas history, and for the feat was named the USTFCCCA Men's Coach of the Year - a first for a Texas Tech coach. The award comes after he won the USTFCCCA's Mountain Region Men's Coach of the Year for both indoor and outdoor seasons. Wrapped with the giant bow of a national title, the ultimate gift to Tech came along with dominant wins of the Big 12 Indoor and Outdoor Championships. Tech's 179 points at the indoor title meet claimed the conference meet record for both total points scored and margin of victory (70 points).Â
2018 also included a sweep of the Big 12 Men's Indoor and Outdoor Championships, and it began with an indoor season during which the men's team took the Big 12 Championship before going on to place sixth at the NCAA Indoor Championships. In the spring, the Red Raiders rode the momentum from the outdoor title to a fourth-place tie at the NCAA Championships. While there, Kittley saw his 22nd national champion in the form of Divine Oduduru, who, in his first year at Tech, became the first sprinter ever to bring a national title home to Lubbock.Â
For the Lady Raiders, Zarriea Willis began a strong 2017-18 campaign with a fourth-place finish in the high jump at the NCAA Indoor Championships that netted her First-Team All-America honors. Willis went on to place sixth at the NCAA Outdoors, netting her another All-America recognition. As a team, Willis and the rest of the Lady Raiders placed sixth at both the indoor and outdoor conference meets.Â
During the 2017 season, the men’s team was ranked in the top 25 in all but one week of indoor and outdoor competition combined. Two consecutive weeks in the outdoor season, the men were ranked third, which ties for the highest ranking ever held by the Red Raiders. The women’s team reached a season-high No. 23 ranking in their last week of outdoor competition. The Red Raiders & Lady Raiders have both been ranked inside the top 25 every year since the poll first began in 2008.
For the second-consecutive indoor season, junior Trey Culver took the NCAA Championship high jump title, marking a new first in Texas Tech, Big 12 and NCAA history. This title was reached on a career-high 2.26m/7-5 bar in College Station, Texas. Culver also swiped a silver medal at the NCAA Outdoor Championships in Eugene to take the highest finish among Tech athletes at the competition. Culver also captured the Big 12 high jump title in Lawrence, Kansas for his second-straight outdoor season.
Culver was joined by six more Big 12 Champions in the 2017 season, bringing the total to 9 titles. Kaylee Hinton and Benard Keter both collected two titles this year. Hinton held down the women’s multi-event titles in the indoor pentathlon and outdoor heptathlon, both of which notching new all-time marks. Hinton’s pentathlon winning total of 5,869 points secured her the No. 5 seat nationally and all-time school record, punching her ticket to Eugene where she was named a First Team All-American. Keter added on to his 2016 Big 12 Cross Country title with wins in the 3,000m steeplechase and the 5,000m run. These performances ultimately added up to reward Keter with the honor of becoming Big 12 Outstanding Performer of the Year.Charles Brown (long jump), Zarriea Willis (high jump), Werner Bouwer (javelin) and Darien Tennon (60m hurdles) wrangled the remainder of the season’s Big 12 titles. Â
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Two Red Raider represented the United States in post-season competition after strong qualifying performances. Sophomore Hinton was selected for her third-straight appearance on Team USA to compete at the Capital Cup Combined Events Championships in Ottawa, Canada, where she took a No. 6 overall finish in the heptathlon. Freshman Justin Hall also qualified, travelling to Trujillo, Peru, in the men’s long jump where he also took a sixth-place finish.
At last year's U.S. Olympic Trials, Kittley's crew was represented in nine events, with 11 individuals that looked to represent the United States in Rio. The group was a mix of current or recently graduated students, as well as alums and one future Red Raider.
in 2016, for the second-straight indoor season and third consecutive NCAA Championship meet (Indoor-Outdoor-Indoor), Texas Tech captured the high jump title thanks to Trey Culver. On March 11 in Birmingham, Alabama, Culver was the only competitor in the field to clear 2.23m/7-3.75, doing so on his third attempt, to win NCAA gold. His victory made Texas Tech the first school to win the NCAA Indoor Championship in the event in back-to-back years with different athletes (JaCorian Duffield in 2015). It was the first of two first team All-America honors for Culver in 2016, as he would finish fifth at the outdoor meet, while teammate Bradley Adkins placed sixth.
It was also an historic season for Hannah Carson. In 2016, Carson became the first woman to ever break the 60-meter barrier in both the javelin and the discus in the same NCAA career, let alone the same season. It started on April 23 in Waco, as Carson unleashed a toss of 60.42m/198-3 in the javelin, breaking her own school record and making her the No. 3 all-time collegiate & No. 5 all-time U.S. performer in the event. Two weeks later, she heaved the discus to a school record 61.97m/203-4 at the Masked Rider Open, which helped her become the first woman to qualify for the NCAA's in both since 2012. At the NCAA Championships, she broke her own javelin record again in an intense battle for the title, tossing it over 60 meters twice, the furthest at 61.20m/200-9. The mark would give her runner-up honors for the second-straight year and would also make her the first woman to toss the javelin and discus 200 feet in the same NCAA career. She would also earn second team All-America honors in the discus at the NCAA Championships as well.
Texas Tech also racked up nine Big 12 Champions in 2016. Chris Caldwell claimed both the 60 & 110-meter hurdle titles for the second-straight year, becoming the first student-athlete to ever accomplish the feat. He was also the first to win the 110H in back-to-back years since Red Raider Marlon Odom when he won titles in 2005, '06 & '07 and the first to win the 60H in consecutive years since Jermaine Cooper in 2001-02. The Red Raiders went 1-2-3 in the pentathlon, led by Shanice Stewart, marking the first time a team has ever swept the top three spots in the event at the conference championship. Viershanie Latham rounded out the indoor titles, winning the program's first Big 12 indoor championship in the triple jump.
At the Big 12 Outdoor Championship, Tech tallied six individual titles. Along with Caldwell, Natalie Thompson picked up her second-straight heptathlon crown after notching a personal-best in the event. She and teammate Kaylee Hinton finished 1-2, becoming the first teammates to do so since 2010. Trey Culver recorded the program's third-straight high jump championship and also made it three-straight years Tech teammates had placed 1-2 in the event, all with different winners over that stretch. Charles Brown picked up Tech's third long jump outdoor title in the last four years and was the first freshman champion since 2010. C.J. Jones brought the program's seventh outdoor crown in the men's 800 meters, while Benard Keter claimed Tech's first 3,000-meter steeplechase victory at the Big 12 Championship.
The men's team was ranked in the top 25 of every poll during both the indoor and outdoor season, climbing as high as seventh during indoors and eighth in the outdoor campaign. It marked the third-straight year the Red Raiders have been ranked inside the top 10 of the weekly poll. Through seven weeks of competition, the Texas Tech men's team was the only team to not drop in the rankings. The women's team moved as high as No. 19 in the polls during the outdoor season.
History was made by the Red Raiders in 2015. JaCorian Duffield and Bradley Adkins not only went 1-2 in the men's high jump at the NCAA Indoor Championships in Fayetteville, Arkansas, but they duplicated their performances at the NCAA Outdoor Championships in Eugene, Oregon. The duo became the first teammates since 1939 (Southern California) to go 1-2 at the outdoor championships and the first teammates to go 1-2 at both the indoor and outdoor championships in the history of the NCAA. Duffield and Adkins represented four of Tech's 11 first team All-America accolades earned during the indoor and outdoor meets. Cierra White (200m) and Hannah Carson (javelin) picked up outdoor first team honors, while Shanice Stewart (long jump), Chris Caldwell (60mH), Kole Weldon (shot put), the men's 4x400 relay team of Steven Champlin, Kyle Collins, Joseph Richards III and C.J. Jones, Le-Tristan Pledger (60mH) and White (200m) tallied indoor first team awards.
The Red Raiders also had successful conference showings, notching eight Big 12 Champions. The men's team earned its highest overall finish in Big 12 Indoor Championship history, finishing runner-up with 95.5 points. Caldwell won the 60-meter hurdles and Duffield claimed the high jump title, while Cierra White broke a school and facility record in the women's 200-meter dash to pick the Big 12 crown. At the outdoor meet, the men's squad repeated with a second-place finish, getting individual titles from Weldon (hammer throw), Duffield (high jump), and Caldwell (100mH). Weldon was also named the high point scorer for the meet with 26 points, becoming the first male to repeat as Big 12 Outdoor high point scorer since 2009. Natalie Thompson (heptathlon) and Carson (javelin) picked up conference championships, helping the women's team to a third-place finish.
The 2014 season may have been his most special in Lubbock to this point. Texas Tech capped the outdoor season by winning the men's team title at the Big 12 Outdoor Championships, scoring a school-record 160.5 points in front of the home crowd at the Terry and Linda Fuller Track & Field Complex. The Red Raiders became the first Big 12 team to clinch a track & field title on its own track since Colorado, in 2008. Tech picked up conference titles from Kennedy Kithuka (5,000m & 10,000m), Bradley Adkins (High Jump) and Shujaa Benson (Long Jump) on the outdoor side, and on the indoor side, Tech picked up a conference title from its 4 x 400m relay team of Montenae Roye-Speight, Cierra White, Christen Rivers and Amoy Blake. Bradley Adkins and JaCorian Duffield earned indoor first team All-American honors after tying for fifth in the high jump at the NCAA Championships. On the outdoor side, Kithuka wrapped up his illustrious career by snagging first team All-American honors in both the 5,000m and 10,000m. He was joined by first-teamers Hannah Carson (Javelin), Le'Tristan Pledger (100mH) and Cierra White (200m).
Kittley also guided Texas Tech to a Big 12 team title at the 2005 Big 12 Outdoor Track and Field Championships as the Red Raiders won the meet with 149.50 points.
In 2013, Kittley's program produced 21 First and Second Team All-Americans between the indoor and outdoor seasons. Meanwhile, Tech crowned six individual Big 12 Champions and two national champions. Kennedy Kithuka and Bryce Lamb captured Texas Tech's first national titles in their respective events. Kithuka capped his remarkable 2013 campaign with a national championship in the indoor 3,000-meter run while Lamb brought his indoor career to a close with a national championship in the triple jump. As a team, Texas Tech finished 5th overall at the 2013 NCAA Indoor Championships with 28 points - the best finish in program history. Tech went on to finish third at the 2013 Big 12 Outdoor Championships with 117.5 points - the best performance at the conference meet since 2005.
At the 2012 London Olympics, the Texas Tech track and field program was represented with a contingent of seven former athletes - all of whom competed at Texas Tech during Kittley's tenure. The group brought home three medals - a gold, silver and bronze. In the fall of 2012, Texas Tech produced the men's NCAA Cross Country Champion as Kennedy Kithuka went undefeated in seven meets during on his way to taking home the NCAA crown, and being named the 2012 Male Athlete of the Year.
Kittley has been recognized nationally for his efforts at Texas Tech as he has twice been named the Women's Regional Coach of the Year in the last four years. Kittley most recently earned the recognition following the 2012 season after receiving the award in 2009. Kittley and his renowned coaching staff have produced 11 NCAA Champions in the last eight seasons. Kipyego made history as an athlete under Kittley and his staff. The Kenyan native broke the NCAA record with nine national titles during her career in both track and field and cross country before going on to qualify for the Kenyan Olympic team. At the 2012 London Olympics she won silver in the 10,000-meter run before nearly medaling again in the 5,000-meter run and finishing fourth.
Meanwhile, thrower D'Andra Carter went on to win Tech's second national title of 2009 during the outdoor season as she became Texas Tech's first discus national champion. She was followed by Julian Wruck who won a men's discus title during the 2011 outdoor season.
Texas Tech brought home a total of 32 All-America honors during the unprecedented 2010 season, 17 indoor and 15 outdoor honors being claimed by Red Raiders and Lady Raiders under Kittley's watch. Following the 2005 men's Big 12 Championship meet, Kittley led 31 of his athletes, the most of any program in the country to the NCAA Outdoor Championships.
Kittley moved to Lubbock after leading one of the most successful programs in the history of collegiate track and field. While at Abilene Christian University, Kittley won an unprecedented 29 national track and field championships, the most in Divisions I and II combined. His total is only three short of the all-time record held by Division III Kenyon College swimming and diving coach Jim Steen. Kittley won his first national championship in 1985 when his women's Wildcat squad won the Division II outdoor championship, a title he would win again in `86, `87 and `88. When ACU combined their programs in 1993, Kittley was selected to head the men's team, as well. He wasted no time taking a floundering men's program to an elite level, winning the Division II indoor title in his first season. His 15-year tenure at ACU included coaching 10 Olympic qualifiers, three Pan-American Games athletes, five World University Games athletes, 16 athletes who have qualified for the world championships and three United States national champions.
In the fall of 2006, Kittley was honored by the Lone Star Conference for his coaching efforts while at ACU as he was named to the conference's Hall of Honor. Kittley is married to the former Linda Rhoads, and the couple has three sons, Zachary, Christopher and Jonathan. 2000-present Texas Tech University Head Coach 1993-99 ACU, Men's Head Coach 1985-99 ACU, Women's Head Coach
