Waskom, Powell Named West Region’s Best

SEATTLE – NCAA Champion Joe Waskom and his Head Coach, Any Powell, both won West Region awards today, announced by the U.S. Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association. Waskom was named the Men’s Track Athlete of the Year for the region, and Powell won Head Coach of the Year honors.
 
The Husky men’s team just finished in a tie for 12th at the NCAA Outdoor Championships in Eugene, their best national outdoor finish since 1979. Sixteen of Washington’s twenty team points came from the 1,500-meter finals, where the Huskies had three of the twelve finalists. Waskom, also the Pac-12 Champion in the event, took the victory and teammates Luke Houser and Nathan Green were fifth and seventh, respectively.
 
Waskom’s win was the first NCAA Outdoor title of any kind for the UW men since Scott Roth won the 2011 pole vault title, and the first in a running event for the men since Ryan Brown won the 800-meters in 2006. It was also the first 1,500m/mile title for the men since Rufus Kiser in 1928. He also became the first man to win both the Pac-12 and NCAA 1,500-meter titles since Matthew Centrowitz of Oregon in 2011, another athlete coached by Powell.
 
The native of Snoqualmie, Wash. is the first Dawg named West Region Men’s Track Athlete of the Year since 2016, when former 1,500m school record-holder Izaic Yorks won the honor.
 
In his fourth year leading the men, Powell coached the Huskies to top-25 finishes at all three NCAA meets this academic year, and UW finished seventh in the USTFCCCA Program of the Year rankings, released on Tuesday.
 
The 20 points UW scored at NCAAs were its most since 1983. Washington also was runner-up at the Pac-12 Championships, matching its best finish in program history. The Dawgs had 10 entries on the men’s side to NCAA Outdoors, which was the most in the Pac-12 and tied for eighth-most in the NCAA.