Wayne Pate Joins Kansas Track and Field Coaching Staff

Aug. 3, 2007

LAWRENCE, Kan. – University of Kansas officials have announced the hiring of Wayne Pate as the new multi and horizontal jumps coach for the Jayhawks’ indoor and outdoor track and field teams.

Pate brings 26 years of coaching experience to the Jayhawks’ staff. After nine years at Indiana University where he worked as an associate head coach since 2004 and served as the interim head coach for the Hoosiers last season. While in Bloomington, Pate, who was in charge of hurdlers and horizontal jumpers, was named the 2003 and 2005 National Assistant Coach of the Year. Under his tutelage, triple jumper Aarick Wilson won two NCAA Championships and the 2007 Indoor and Outdoor USA Championships. He also guided long jumper Rose Richmond to the 2006 USA Championship and to the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens.

Prior to his stint at Indiana, Pate served as the hurdles, jumps, and relays coach at Purdue for three years. The LaPorte, Ind., native joined the Boilermakers after spending three seasons as the head track and field and cross country coach at Murray State, once earning Ohio Valley Conference Coach of the Year honors.

For seven years prior to Murray State, Pate was the jumps and sprints coach at the University of Texas. Among his accomplishments in Austin, Pate coached two-time NCAA long jump champion and former NFL running back Eric Metcalf and three-time NCAA high jump champion James Lott.

Pate spent his first four years coaching the jumpers at Tennessee from 1981-85 where he had two NCAA runner-ups in the triple-jump.

Pate officially started at Kansas on August 1, but will be traveling to coach his former Hoosiers, Wilson and Richmond, at the World Championships in Osaka, Japan on August 21. Wilson is currently ranked third in the world in the triple jump and Richmond is 16th in the long jump. Pate graduated from Indiana in 1981 with a bachelor’s degree in physical education. He and his wife, Laura, have two children, Charlize and Justin.