Washington State quietly adds a quartet to its track & cross country coaching staff...

PULLMAN--While a press release from the school has not been issued, Washington State University quietly added Derick Hinch, Laura Harmon, Gabriel Mvumvure, and Emma Wren to its track and field coaching staff under Cougar director of track & field and cross country Wayne Phipps.

Hinch comes to Pullman from Cornell University, where he was an assistant coach from 2019. Among his most accomplished athlete at Cornell was heptathlete Beatrice Juskeviciute, who finished seventh at the NCAA championships with a score of 5721 points in June.

He also guided pole vaulter Claire Kao to an Ivy League title in the 2020 indoor season.

The former Arizona State University pole vaulter was a two time all-American with the Sun Devils, placing third at the 2012 NCAA championships. He will have the title of associate head coach for track & field.

Hinch will work with the horizontal and vertical jumps, replacing Doug & Erica Fraley, who are now at the University of Montana.

Laura Harmon, who was the head men's and women's track coach at NCAA Division II University of Minnesota-Duluth, will be the Cougars' women's head cross country coach and an assistant men's and women's track coach.

Harmon, who is a native of Vancouver, Washington, has experience coaching and competing in the Pac-12 Conference, as she was a cross country All-American for the University of Oregon in 2004, finishing 31st. She was also an assistant track and cross country coach under Kelly Sullivan at Oregon State from 2011-2014. 

Harmon replaces Lara Rogers, who was hired by WSU at the end of April, only to leave a few weeks later to become the women's head coach of Under Armour's UA Run Baltimore Distance.

Three-time world outdoor championships competitor and 2016 Olympian Gabriel Mvumvure will serve as the Cougars' sprints coach, coming to Pullman from Brown University, where he was an assistant coach for the Bears starting in 2019.

The three-time All-American at Louisiana State University won an NCAA title as part of the Bayou Bengals' 4 x 100 meter relay team in 2008. He held the Zimbabwe national indoor record for the 60 meters. His personal-best time of 9.98 in the 100 meters is the seventh fastest by an African in history.

Besides competing for Zimbabwe at three world outdoor championships, Mvumvure competed in two world indoor championships in Sopot, Poland, and the 2016 meet in Portland.

He replaces Yogi Teevens, who left the program after the end of the season.

Emma Wren completes the staff for the Cougars as an assistant cross country and track coach, working with both Phipps and Harmon.

Wren comes to Washington State from Division II Adams State University in Colorado, where she worked with the team's middle and long distance runners and was their recruiting coordinator.

Wren competed at Kansas State where she scored in the mile at the Big 12 championships indoors, and also in the distance medley relay.

In the 2021 outdoor season, she used her final season of eligibility at Adams State to qualify for the NCAA D2 championships in the 1500, where she was tenth.

Wren is a native of Portland, and competed for Cleveland HS before going to Kansas State.

The quartet join Phipps and senior associate head coach Julie Taylor, the two holdovers from the staff that completed the 2021-22 season.

The link to the Washington State coaching staff is available here.

NOTE: Washington State University and the sports information offices of Cornell, Minnesota-Duluth, Brown and Adams State contributed to this report.

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