Baylor University Women's Track & Field

Michael Ford enters his fifth year as head coach at Baylor, and his 24th year in total with the Bears. Ford works primarily with sprints (100-400) and relays. Ford was promoted to head coach in the summer of 2021 after spending four years as associate head coach and 15 seasons as assistant coach. Ford has mentored multiple All-Americans in more than two decades coaching at his alma mater, including six-time All-American Matthew Moorer, three-time All-American Howard Fields III, two-time All-American Maxwell Willis and first-time All-American Ryan Croson. He has also mentored several recent Baylor standouts, including four-time All-American Kiana Horton, two-time NCAA champion Trayvon Bromell and five-time All-American hurdler Tiffani McReynolds. With Ford serving as the sprints/hurdles coach for Team USA in the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, the men's sprints and hurdles team brought in 10 medals, five being gold. Overall, the Team USA Track and Field squad earned 34 medals while in Pari

Initially hired in January 2025, Miller is beginning her second full season assisting David Barnett with the distance runners. . Miller, an alum of Baylor, earned her BBA in Marketing in 2020 and MSEd in Sports Management in 2022. On the track, Miller carved her name in the record books as the most decorated woman in all-time conference titles with nine Big-2 championships and became the first Baylor woman to earn a national championship in the 800m event in 2021. Miller, a five-time All-American in the indoor and outdoor 800m and 4x400 relay, currently is the BU Indoor and Outdoor school record holder (800m), BU Outdoor school record holder (SMR) and Big 12 Indoor and Outdoor meet record holder (800m). Her epic 2021 indoor campaign was highlighted by winning the national championship in the 800 meters after going wire-to-wire in a meet-record time of 2:00.69 to win by .52 seconds.

Benjamin Richard Dalton was hired as assistant track & field coach/recruiting coordinator in July of 2019. He serves as assistant sprints and hurdles coach as well as the recruiting coordinator. Led by nine-time All-American Nathaniel Ezekiel, Baylor's hurdles crew had an impressive 2025 season. The program's first-ever finalist for The Bowerman, Ezekiel won the outdoor national title in the 400m hurdles with a school- and Nigerian national record time of 47.49 at the NCAA Outdoor Championships. Named the Big 12 Indoor and Outdoor Performer of the Year, Ezekiel also won his sixth conference championship with a then-Big 12, Baylor and Nigerian record of 47.89 at the Big 12 Outdoor meet. Additionally, Dalton mentored Jamaicans Calisha Taylor and Demario Prince to school-record marks in the 400m and 110m hurdles, respectively. Prince broke the indoor mark in the 60m hurdles with a winning time of 7.57 seconds at the Charlie Thomas.

A former All-Big 12 athlete at Baylor, Chase Hood returned to his alma mater as an assistant coach in 2023 after one year as a volunteer coach at Colorado State, where he primarily worked with the pole vaulters and jumpers. Hood continues in his role coaching the multi-event athletes and will add the throwers this season. Last year, freshmen Dexter Brice and Kiara Wesseh both placed 14th in the decathlon and heptathlon, respectively, at the Big 12 Outdoor Championships. In his first coaching stint as a volunteer assistant at Baylor, he worked with the multis and jumps and helped Baylor assistant Brandon Richards lead Olympic pole vaulter KC Lightfoot to the 2021 indoor national championship. Hood graduated from Baylor in 2017 with a bachelor's degree in kinesiology. After transitioning from the pole vault to the multi events, he earned three all-conference honors, including a runner-up finish in the decathlon at the 2017 Big 12 Outdoor Championship.

David Barnett is in his fifth season as head cross country and distance coach with the Bears, joining Baylor in August of 2021. During the fall cross country season, Barnett saw sophomore Ruth Kimeli earn all-region honors and advance to the NCAA Championships for the second year in a row. The Kenyan native ran a 6K season-best time of 19:44.1 in a top-10 finish at the Arturo Barrios Invitational. At the NCAA South Central Regional, she finished eighth again in 20:11.4 to gain an at-large spot at the NCAA Championships. In 2024, Barnett helped then-freshman Ruth Kimeli earn all-region honors with a fourth-place finish at the NCAA South Central Regional and a berth in the NCAA Cross Country Championships. She also became the first woman in program history to record a top-10 finish at the prestigious Gans Creek Classic, placing eighth with a time of 20:12.3 that ranks in the top 20 in the meet's history. Outdoors, Kimeli led the distance crew again, qualifying for the 2025 NCAA Champions

Stacey Smith is in her 24th season as a coach at Baylor working with the Bears' jumpers and fourth season as the associate head coach of the program. The most decorated women's athlete in program history, the former Stacey Bowers currently holds the Baylor outdoor and indoor record in the triple jump while claiming the first individual national title in women's program history when she won the 1999 NCAA outdoor triple jump title. Smith was promoted from assistant coach to associate women's track head coach during the summer of 2017, and then from associate women's coach to associate head coach in the summer of 2022. In almost two decades of coaching at her alma mater, Smith has been able to translate her personal collegiate success into success for the student-athletes she has mentored. She coached Felix Obi as he became Baylor's first national champion in the triple jump in the 2014 indoor season. She has coached 22 All-Americans during her time, including 17 on the women's side and f