Washington State jumps coach Matt McGee resigns...

PULLMAN--Confirming what several members of the Cougar track and field team posted on their Twitter pages Tuesday evening, Washington State University announced Wednesday that assistant coach Matt McGee, who was the team's jumps coach the last six seasons, resigned.

McGee was in charge of athletes in the long, triple and high jumps, along with the pole vault.

This season, he guided Stephan Scott-Ellis to a Pac-10 title in the triple jump, and also worked with Holly Parent and Christine Rice, who were Pac-10 scorers this season in the high jump.

McGee is a former Cougar decathlete and javelin thrower who graduated from Washington State in 2003 with a B.A. in philosophy. He has been a member of the WSU coaching staff since 2004: first as a volunteer and then as a fulltime assistant coach overseeing all the jumping events beginning in the summer of 2005. He resigned in order to pursue other professional opportunities.

HOT LINKS

We've got a pair of hot links for you…first is an interview from Runner's World Daily's Peter Gambaccini with Western Washington's Sarah Porter, who won the NCAA Division II title in the 10000 and was second in the 5000 last week.

Porter almost never got to the line, due to an eligibility dispute involving a road race that she ran in.

She says, "I never even accepted the check I saw. I'm not really at liberty discuss the details of it, but basically, the (NCAA) rule is you cannot choose which charity your race winnings go to. You're allowed to give to a charity that's race-sponsored. I gave to a charity that was not race-sponsored."

When asked where the race was, she simply said that she wasn't allowed to discuss it. "I was briefed by our PR guy who said 'just don't give any details.'"

Porter was already with the team in Turlock, California when she got the call from Butch Kamena, the compliance officer at Western telling her she wasn't eligible to run last Wednesday, one day before the 10000 meter final.

She goes on to state that she had her eligibility restored at 3 pm last Thursday, a few hours before the race.

Porter will make her professional debut in New York, where she will run in the New York Mini 10k at Central Park on June 11th.

You can read the full interview here…

The other hot link is the provisional entry list for Saturday's Nike Prefontaine Classic at Hayward Field in Eugene.

The meet actually kicks off Friday with a distance evening of races including a 25 and 30k track race at 6:40 pm, followed by a women's 5000 at 8:25 pm, and the men's 10000 at 8:50 pm.

Among Washington affiliated athletes entered in the Pre Classic include Bernard Lagat in the men's 2-mile along with Auburn Riverside grad Jordan McNamara (who's entered as a pacemaker); defending champion Kara Patterson in the javelin; Washington State grad Ian Waltz in the discus; and, Washington alum Katie Follett in the 1500m.

paulmerca.blogspot.com will be in Eugene to cover the Prefontaine Classic. The meet will be televised on NBC beginning at 11:30 am pacific time. Friday night's distance races will be streamed online at preclassic.com.


The start list for the Pre Classic is available here.