Redwine, Pate Claim National Coach of the Year Honors
NEW ORLEANS – Kansas track & field head coach Stanley Redwine and assistant coach Wayne Pate each earned national accolades Wednesday as the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) awarded the two with outdoor coach of the year honors. Redwine was named the women’s head coach of the year for the first time, while Pate was named the women’s assistant coach of the year for the second-consecutive outdoor season.
“I’m incredibly humbled and honored to have received this award,” said Redwine. “It’s been an outstanding year for Kansas track & field and it’s great to be adding another great accomplishment to a long list of which this team has collected this season. These awards for both Coach Pate and I were a result of hundreds of hours of hard work by not only us, but the other coaches, support staff and most importantly, the student-athletes. This season was all about achieving great things as a team and these awards definitely reflect that.”
Redwine, who just concluded his 13th season at the helm of the Kansas track & field program, took home the women’s outdoor head coach of the year award for the first time in his highly successful career in Lawrence. The Arkansas alumnus oversaw the KU women’s team that was ranked No. 1 in the national rankings for eight of the 10 weeks this season and went on to claim the program’s first NCAA Championship last week in Eugene, Ore. The KU women also won the program’s first outdoor Big 12 title after seeing eight Jayhawks win individual league crowns. Redwine coached Diamond Dixon to her third-straight Big 12 400-meter title, as well as KU’s All-American 4×400-meter relay. Redwine has won a litany of awards already this season as he was also named the Midwest Region’s indoor and outdoor head coach of the year as well as the Big 12 Women’s Coach of the Year for both the indoor and outdoor seasons.
Pate, just completing his sixth season as the Jayhawks’ horizontal jumps and combined events coach, was named the women’s assistant coach of the year for the second year in a row after his athletes combined to score 26 of KU’s 60 points at the NCAA Championships last week. He mentored 12-time first team All-American Andrea Geubelle to runner-up finishes in the long jump and triple jump in addition to her second Big 12 Championship in the triple jump.
Pate pupil Lindsay Vollmer went on to win the NCAA Championship in the heptathlon, becoming the first Kansas female to win a NCAA individual title. Vollmer’s 6,086-point performance in Eugene is the 10th-best performance in NCAA heptathlon history and the No. 24 performance ever by an American in the event. Pate oversaw Vollmer and senior long jumper Francine Simpson to Big 12 titles in their respective events as well.
A graduate of Indiana, Pate has been named the national and Midwest Region Assistant Coach of the Year for both indoor and outdoor season’s each of the last two seasons. He is now been named a national assistant coach of the year six times in his career.
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