Washington State AD Anne McCoy says decision to scale back track and field program not made for ‘financial reasons’

More than two weeks after dropping the ax on the “field” of half of Washington State’s track and field program, Cougars athletic director Anne McCoy emerged on Thursday to insist it wasn’t done with an eye to budget considerations.

“The decision was made not for financial reasons,” she said during a teleconference, “as much as for competitive success and the ability to provide a high-level experience.”

The athletic director made herself available for questions for the first time since the school announced on June 16 that field events no longer will be contested as part of the track, and that opportunities in the sprints and hurdles will be scaled back significantly as resources get marshaled into the distance running events. The school will continue to sponsor indoor and outdoor track, as well as cross country, in fulfilling NCAA-mandated minimum sport offerings.

It’s an unprecedented cut for Washington State. While other sports have been dropped entirely in the past – men’s tennis, most recently, in 1994 – no program with track and field’s impressive history had been so gutted.

The Cougars won the NCAA indoor championship in 1977 behind distance great Henry Rono, and multiple Pac-10 championships in the 1980s. And for all of WSU’s distance running history, the short races and field events have contributed mightily to the school’s legacy.

Forty-five Cougars have competed in the Olympics – 20 in the field events. In the Pac-10/12 era, the Cougars crowned 126 conference champions; 92 of those came in the sprints, hurdles and field events. WSU’s last true distance champion was Bernard Lagat in 1999.

That’s also as long as it’s been since the Cougars cracked the top three in team scoring at the Pac-10/12 level for either the men or women. McCoy was asked if that lack of success factored into the decision.

“Absolutely not,” she said. “No.”

But while the Cougars figure to be competitive in cross country as the Pac-12 rebuilds itself in 2026-27, they won’t be challenging for team trophies in track entering only distance runners.

“There are opportunities to be successful in a wide variety of ways,” McCoy reasoned, saying that the school will look “at individual participation … and the ability to be successful at a national level as individuals.

“As we looked at the landscape going forward, it looked like we were spreading ourselves too thin.”

This was a point McCoy continued to stress as she was pressed on any financial motivations for slashing the program.

The Cougars – and athletic departments nationwide – are faced with increasing funding challenges, exacerbated by revenue-sharing dictates from the recent House v. NCAA decision.

WSU also must deal with a severe reduction in television income from the breakup of the Pac-12 a year ago, and its own nine-figure cumulative athletic department debt.

McCoy offered that the elimination of three assistant coaching positions would save roughly $300,000, on top of whatever reductions in student aid occur down the line as athletes decide on their futures. She said about 35 track athletes have put their names into the transfer portal, though some may still opt to stay – and WSU has committed to fulfilling any scholarship obligations through completion of a student’s degree, which McCoy cited as making it difficult in putting an accurate dollar figure to the cuts.

Nor would she address at what scholarship level the school will support the scaled-down program.

As the House settlement has done away with the NCAA scholarship limits in favor of roster sizes, WSU athletics has given its head coaches a “benefits pool” to be distributed to athletes in whatever fashion – scholarships, revenue sharing, institutional NIL payments.

“The benefits pool will remain reasonably similar on the men’s side,” McCoy said. “If it decreases on the women’s side, that will be put back into our other women’s sport programs.”

But she asserted that the school is “going to provide the resources that track and cross country need to be successful with the pared-down roster.

“This year we were trying to do the best we could in sending our student-athletes to a variety of different meets, scholarshipping as best we could, but again spread out amongst a lot of people,” she said.

“Our focus is going to be much more narrow and strategic. And so if there are resources that end up being freed up, again, this is about an entire athletic department budget and not just six sport programs, if you will. This was not about a financial cut. This was about the ability to be successful moving forward and quite frankly not being able to continue being all things to as many student-athletes in our department.”

McCoy said there are “no plans to make any changes like this in the immediate future to any (more) programs.” She did not rule out restoring the track program back to full event offerings, “but right now, this is where we’re at.”

“It’s extremely important going forward that we really look at what we can be successful at and really prioritize resources for that,” she said.