WSU cross country/track and field announces four additions to coaching staff
PULLMAN, Wash. -- Washington State's Director of Cross Country/Track & Field Wayne Phipps announced Tuesday the addition of four new coaches to the cross country/track & field staff. The Cougars welcome Derick Hinch (assoc. head coach, track & field), Laura Harmon (head coach, women's cross country/assistant coach, track & field), Gabriel Mvumvure (assistant coach, track & field) and Emma Wren (assistant coach, cross country/track & field).
Laura Harmon will work with the women's cross country and track & field distance programs as she has throughout her 17-year coaching career. She most recently served as the head cross country/track and field coach at Jesuit HS, one of her alma maters, which came after a three-year stint at NCAA Division II Minnesota Duluth. Her coaching experience includes multiple high school team state championships in both cross country and track, numerous NCAA All-Americans and multiple conference champions. She excelled as a runner at the University of Oregon where she earned one All-American nod, two second team academic All-American selections, and four NCAA Regional appearances.
Hinch brings six years of coaching experience to the Palouse and spent the last three years as an assistant track & field coach at Cornell. He helped re-write the record book at Cornell, overseeing 52 top-10 performances at Cornell including three school records in the women's pole vault, the heptathlon and women's high jump, respectively. Under his tutelage Big Red student-athletes won seven conference titles and earned six all-American honors.
Gabriel Mvumvure, a decorated competitor who represented Zimbabwe at the 2016 Rio Olympics, will continue to coach sprints and hurdles for both the men's and women's track & field programs as he did during his three years at Brown University. Mvumvure is a three-time All-American running on the 4X100m relay team and was a two-time All-SEC performer while also winning a national championship his freshman year. At Brown, he helped to produce one NCAA first round qualifier, one Ivy League indoor conference champion (400m), one Ivy League indoor runner-up (60m hurdles), a pair of school records and 13 program top-10 performances.
Emma Wren joins the squad an assistant coach for the cross country and track & field programs. Wren excelled as a student-athlete across both NCAA Division I and Division II competition. Wren began her collegiate career with the Kansas State Wildcats before transferring to Adam's State University where she competed in the 2021 NCAA Division II Outdoor Track and Field Championships, earning first All-American honors in the 1500m.
Wren completed her master's in Applied Sports Psychology at Adams State where she also got her start in collegiate coaching as a volunteer assistant coach with the Grizzlies' cross country and distance programs.
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