Cornell University Men's Track & Field

Adrian Durant, widely considered to be one of the top young track coaches in the country, was named The George E. Heekin '29 Coach of Men's Track & Field at Cornell in July 2015. He earned the promotion after spending three seasons as an assistant on the Big Red staff, coaching one of the nation's top sprinting units. Durant is in his 10th season as head coach and has won an Ivy League Outdoor Championship, been named Ivy League Outdoor Coach of the Year, and twice named Northeast Region Men's Coach of the Year. In his inaugural 2016 season, his team clinched the Outdoor HEPS Championship with a record 211 points, becoming the only team in conference history to score over 200 points in a single championship. Durant has coached and developed over 50 Ivy League champions, eight Ivy League Championship MVPs, and 12 All-Americans, including Olympic competitors and NCAA champions. Before joining Cornell, he was an assistant coach at Florida A&M University coaching jumps. As a competitor, Durant was a highly successful sprinter who represented the U.S. Virgin Islands as a team captain, competing in multiple World Championships, Pan American Games, and the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens. He was a walk-on sprinter at the University of South Carolina where he earned All-American status as a member of the 4x400m relay team.

Ethan Sandusky was hired as an assistant coach for the Big Red in October of 2022. He is in charge of assisting with the vertical jumps and decathlon. In his first season, Sandusky helped Victoria Atkinson reach a new indoor school record in the women's pole vault with a mark of 4.17m, one of five top 10 school marks in his events. While at Cornell, Sandusky's athletes have set one school record, earned two Ivy League Championship medals and have been conference scorers five times. Prior to Cornell, Sandusky had served as assistant coach/recruiting coordinator at Tulane from 2019-22, where his student-athletes accomplished three school records, three AAC Championship medals, 13 AAC Championship scorers, 12 Tulane top 10 school records and five scholastic All-Americans. He served as a volunteer coach at the University of Arkansas, monitoring and assisting with all field events, helping athletes achieve NCAA Championships, SEC Championships, and All-America honors. As a three-time Sun Belt Conference pole vault champion at Arkansas State, Sandusky was twice an NCAA outdoor preliminary round qualifier and a finalist in 2015, finishing 16th in the nation. He became the Sun Belt record holder in 2015 and broke into the top 10 standings in Arkansas State's record books in both pole-vault and heptathlon.

Jacky Mendes joined the Big Red track and field staff as an assistant coach in 2021. Mendes has spent the past decade coaching at various levels of college track and field, bringing varied experiences to the Big Red staff and having specialized in working with the jumps and multi-events over the course of her career. She comes to Cornell from Bucknell (2021), where she coached the jumps and multi-events and served as the program's academic coordinator and community service liaison. Prior to Bucknell, Mendes served in similar roles at Duke (2020-21) and her alma mater, New Hampshire (2018-20), where her student-athletes set five individual school records and won IC4A and America East titles. At Duke, she helped the Blue Devils to the ACC outdoor title with four athletes posting top four all-time marks and qualifying for the NCAA East Preliminary Round. She spent three seasons as head coach at Merrimack College (2014-17), overseeing all aspects of the program and assisting in the development of a six-time national champion, 12-time All-American and Olympic Trials runner. As a student-athlete at the University of New Hampshire, Mendes was a four-year letter winner and team captain as a senior, setting a school record of 3,485 points in the pentathlon in 2011 that still stands.

A native of Seattle, Wash., Evans is a 2013 graduate of the University of Washington, specializing in the distance events. She was a member of the Husky team that placed third at the 2009 NCAA DI Women's Cross Country National Championship, with additional Pac 10 and 12, West Region, and NCAA championship experience in cross country and track & field. Evans joined the Cornell coaching staff in May of 2023 with responsibilities working with the men's and women's distance team. Since joining the Big Red, Evans has aided in the development of the men's and women's distance and mid-distance athletes. Most notably, she has aided in the Ivy League- and NCAA-competition success of Augustine Haquet, Damian Hackett, and Rhys Hammond. At Minnesota State, Evans aided in the development of many high-achievers, including an NCAA DII All-American, three NCAA DII qualifiers, two all-region performers, two NSIC champions, two NSIC runners-up, and a season-long national team ranking in cross country. Prior to Minnesota State, Evans spent four years as the head cross country and track and field coach at Newport HS in Bellevue, Wash. Under her leadership, the program revived and produced a cross country district championship, top 10 state cross country team, a state champion, multiple district champions, and numerous collegiate athletes.

Phipps joined the Big Red track and field staff as an assistant coach of throws in September 2016. Throughout his years at Cornell, he has coached numerous athletes to top-10 throws on the Cornell career record list. In his first year, he assisted in coaching Rudy Winkler '17 to Ivy League titles in hammer throw and weight throw, with Winkler becoming a First-Team All-American and 2017 NCAA Hammer Throw Champion. His second season saw Michaela Smith '18 achieve her first and second Ivy League wins in shot put and set the outdoor shot put record. Before Cornell, Phipps spent five years as an assistant coach at Baldwin-Wallace University where he was named the 2016 USTFCCCA DIII Women's National Assistant Coach of the Year. He helped Baldwin-Wallace women's indoor team to the 2016 NCAA DIII national championship and coached multiple All-Americans and national champions. As a competitor, Phipps was a six-time DIII All-American and seven-time Ohio Athletic Conference champion at Baldwin-Wallace, also playing four years of varsity football as a defensive tackle and captaining the team as a senior. He holds a B.S. in Exercise Science from Baldwin-Wallace, is a USTFCCCA Certified Strength and Conditioning Coach, and a USATF Level 1 Certified Coach.

Mike Henderson Title Alan B. '53 and Elizabeth Heekin Harris Head Coach of Women's Track & Field/Men's and Women's Cross Country Email mh2425@cornell.edu