Boise State Athletics
The Start of a New Era
7/23/2024 1:00:00 PM | General, Cross Country, Track & Field
There is no ceiling in Pat McCurry’s mind. The first-year head coach of Boise State cross country and track and field believes his hometown program has everything it needs to win championships.
The Boise native returns to the school he was an assistant at from 2016-18 with high expectations for what the program can accomplish – and he brings a mindsight that he thinks can accomplish that goal.
“Boise is one of the fastest growing cities in the country, you have great academic programs to recruit to, and there are great resources here. You can’t really give student-athletes a great experience if you can’t compete for championships. And you definitely can give people that experience here. There’s nothing we’re missing.”
McCurry’s coaching philosophy is based on person-first coaching – putting the person before the athlete. He views this as a pyramid: prioritizing the care of the person first as the base, building up toward an athlete, a jumper and then a triple jumper. In his words, this helps avoid the overspecialization that can be problematic in sports today.
“When we work the other way around, that’s when we get to the nasty and unhealthy habits in sport,” McCurry said.
McCurry, who most recently helmed the program at San Francisco from 2018-21, took a path to coaching that runs against the grain. The former high school football player at nearby Bishop Kelly High School dreamed of becoming a high school English teacher while coaching basketball – “Dead Poet’s Society” meets “Hoosiers.” He didn’t take track and field seriously until his senior season and didn’t run cross country until he was in college. But he was hooked.
The more he got into a successful career at Eastern Oregon, the more he realized that making a livelihood out of coaching was his calling. After a successful 13-year stint at the nearby College of Idaho, he joined the Broncos staff for three seasons working with the middle-distance runners. He returned to the head coach chair at San Francisco and has spent much of his career coaching post-collegiate athletes – a group that includes former Boise State All-American Marisa Howard, who just made her first Olympic Games for Team USA in the 3,000-meter steeplechase.
Now back in the Treasure Valley, McCurry views the Broncos as a dream spot. One that he believes can field a full track and field team built for winning championships across all event groups. Several factors fuel McCurry’s belief that Boise State can have a broad-based program to win across all event areas: jumps, sprints, hurdles, distance and throws.
A History of Success
Throughout its history, Boise State track and field has gone through several cycles of event focus. In total, Broncos athletes have won national titles in a wide range of events:
· High Jump- Jake Jacoby (1984)
· Triple Jump- Eugene Green (1991)
· Javelin- Gabe Wallin (2004-05)
· Long Jump- Eleni Kafourou (2009)
· Decathlon- Kurt Felix (2012)
· 10,000-meter- Emma Bates (2014)
· 3,000-meter Steeplechase- Allie Ostrander (2017-19)
· 800-meter- Kristie Schoffield (2022)
“We’ve had all the pieces. The history has shown you can be successful in every area and our goal is to do everything at once,” McCurry said. “It’s not easy in that we need to be extra-organized, but if you know you can get top people in all those areas, there’s no reason to believe we can’t do it in all those areas at once.”
McCurry believes his skillset in collaborative leadership and a staff of coaches he’s surrounded himself with can build the foundation for success across the event groups.
The Resources
McCurry praises Boise State’s outdoor facility of Dona Larsen Park, located only minutes from campus, downtown and the surrounding foothills, calling the home base “beautiful.”
He also believes the training staff around the program – the program has two athletic trainers dedicated to track and field and cross country – another piece of the support network of his person-first coaching philosophy.
Boise State also has a budget that is competitive nationally, one that allows the athletes to compete at the nation’s best meets.
“We don’t have many limitations here. Our budget is great. We’re fully funded with scholarships on both sides, we have five full-time coaches. We have a great facility and we live in the fastest growing city in the country.”
An Elite Coaching Staff
“You can’t expect to attract elite athletes in all these event areas if you don’t have elite coaches,” McCurry said about his inaugural staff. “That was step one to get them. It’s about balance in the right areas and in the right people. We have a killer staff here.”
McCurry had two baselines when assembling his staff: person-first coaching and a willingness to be collaborative. He believes he found that in assembling a staff of associate head coaches Mark Badowsky (jumps and multi-events) and Emma Wren (distance), and assistant coaches Kelsey Betthauser (throws) and Andy Green (sprints and hurdles).
Badowsky has previous experience as a head coach and coached a NAIA national champion in the long jump. Wren brings a wealth of domestic and international experience, in addition to a background in performance psychology. In Betthauser and Green, he believes he has a pair of coaches who are hungry to prove themselves.
Building a Program
McCurry’s goal is to build a program. He acknowledges that includes current student-athletes, recruits and building a vast alumni network. He wants an aggressive engagement strategy for alumni and to build a program they can be proud of.
“We want to embrace our alums from a wide range of eras,” McCurry said. “Whether it’s a multi-time national champion or someone who threw here in the 1970’s. We’re hard at work building a program they can be proud of.”
And as far as what’s next for Boise State track and field?
“An elite student-athlete experience and some team championships,” McCurry said. “The student-athlete experience will beget championships, not the other way around. We need to build the culture to carry that forward.”
