Texas Tech University Athletics
For Love of the Athlete
October 10, 2014 | Track and Field
Kittley led the Red Raiders to a memorable Big 12 title run in 2014.
BY BRITTON DROWN
Special to TexasTech.com
The images from that May evening at the Terry and Linda Fuller Track and Field Complex will not soon be forgotten by anyone involved in the Texas Tech track and field program.
Kennedy Kithuka's brilliant sweep of the 5,000 and 10,000-meter run. The trio of Red Raiders who went 1-2-3 in the high jump. Idalou native Bradley Adkins clearing 7-feet 3 inches on his third attempt to win Tech's first title in the event in 11 years.
Of course there was also Kole Weldon's combined 24 points in the shot put, discus and hammer throw as he became Tech's first-ever high point scorer.
Yes, head coach Wes Kittley's Red Raiders made history at their home track, becoming just the second squad to hoist a Big 12 trophy in front of its home crowd.
"It was one of the greatest, and most special moments that I've had in coaching," Kittley, who completed his 15th season at the helm of the Red Raiders in 2014, said.
The team title was Tech's second in outdoor track and field, both of which have come under Kittley's watch. He guided the Red Raiders to their first in 2005, just five years after taking over a program that had yet to finish better than 10th in the conference.
Yet, it was two weeks later as he revisited that magical evening, that Kittley's core coaching principles, and arguably the pillars of his success, revealed themselves once more. Tucked in a hotel meeting room in Fayetteville, Ark. just hours before the start of the NCAA West Preliminaries, Kittley took the moment to recognize one of his senior runners.
He told the story of how that senior, even in the pandemonium of celebrating a Big 12 Conference Championship, took time to reminded his head coach of one very important element to the ongoing celebration. In the midst of the excitement, Kittley brought his athletes and Texas Tech administration together on the track for one final meeting.
"I gave them whatever speech I could come up with," he said. "And I was just going to go on with it."
But that wasn't Kittley, as his very own seasoned senior would soon remind him of that.
"He just grabbed me," Kittley said. "And said, `Hey coach, we aren't leaving here without you leading us in a prayer."
And so coach corralled the group once more, and as he has done so many times before, led them in a voluntary prayer.
Kittley retold the story that evening in Fayetteville, emphasizing that act of character and maturity. It was the second time in two conference championships, the first coming in 2005, that an athlete has stopped Kittley and reminded him of the team prayer - an act Kittley voluntarily leads his athletes in following each meeting throughout the year.
"For me, it just means that I have had a little bit of an impact on their life," Kittley said. "For them to know that it's really important to me, and that they wanted me to not change anything."
See, to know Kittley is to know a story not about track and field, but a journey that begins on a cotton farm 12 miles outside the map-dot town of Rule, Texas. To know Kittley is to also know his passion for athletics comes not from a drive to win, but a drive to eventually build better people.
As he says, athletes that would seek him out years after wearing a Texas Tech uniform, and talk about more than track and field.
From a place where lessons of patience and perseverance are instilled through repetitive trips up and down a cotton field, Kittley's foundation of faith and competitiveness took root. His hometown of Rule, as Kittley so often explains to his athletes, is at the very heart of his approach to coaching even today.
"I didn't know it at the time," he says. "But it was just the greatest blessing I could have ever had."
AN ABILENE DYNASTY
For Kittley, trips such as the one he took on a yellow school bus with his local church on autumn weekends to watch the Abilene Christian Wildcats play football stuck with him as his reputation grew on the track throughout a decorated high school career. So after winning Texas state titles as a leg on the Rule 4x400 relay team alongside teammate and current Baylor head football coach Art Briles, Abilene Christian is where he wanted to keep running.
As the opportunity to walk-on to that program presented itself, Kittley took it. "They made me feel special," he said. "They recruited me hard, and even though they didn't give me a scholarship they made me feel special. That was a huge thing in my life."
The decision proved to pay off as Kittley went on to earn All-America honors three times in the 800-meter run. He was also the first in his family to earn a college degree, and in 1983 after completing his master's degree, was offered the head coaching position for the Wildcat women's track and field team by friend and athletics director Wally Bullington.
The offer took him by surprise.
"I about passed out," Kittley said. "He just saw something in me as a young man. It was a great path and the start to a great career."
It took just two years before Kittley's impact was felt within the Abilene Christian women's track and field team. The Wildcats won the NCAA Division II Outdoor Championship in 1985, the first of four straight outdoor and six overall in four years including the 1989 and 1990 indoor championships.
Abilene Christian combined its track and field program in 1993, and named Kittley the head coach of a rising track and field dynasty in West Texas.
The former walk-on athlete would win a total of 29 national championships as head coach before yet another opportunity would present itself - this time in Lubbock.
THE MOVE TO TEXAS TECH
Former athletics director Gerald Myers knew Kittley needed to be at Texas Tech. In the fall of 1999, he was able to convince the legendary Abilene Christian head coach with a vision for a struggling program just a few hours north. Kittley was just the coach they needed to raise Texas Tech from the depths of the Big 12 Conference.
And so with a pitch that inspired Kittley, one focused on winning team championships and improving facilities, Myers forever changed the future of Texas Tech track and field.
"I couldn't refuse it," Kittley said. "We packed our bags and moved here very quickly. It was the first day of school. We just barely got into an apartment and just got the kids into school."
Success didn't come as quick at Tech for the reigning NCAA Division II National Champion coach. Kittley arrived in Lubbock fresh off four national titles in 1999 as his men's and women's squads swept the indoor and outdoor crowns just months earlier.
The Red Raiders finished 10th at the Big 12 Outdoor Championships during each of his first two seasons, but made steady improvements. The Tech men finished runner-up in 2004 before breaking through to win the team title in 2005.
Meanwhile, the Lady Raiders earned their first-ever top-5 finish at the Big 12 Championships in 2004 finishing fifth, and went on to finish third in 2005. "I always thought Texas Tech was a gold mine," Kittley said. "It was just a mindset."
He has certainly proved that. Texas Tech has not only made noise at the Big 12 Championships since Kittley's arrival on the South Plains, but has produced some of the top athletes in the world.
And perhaps it's fitting that his first national champion and eventual Olympian hailed from Abilene. Jonathan Johnson was the No. 1 recruit in the nation at 800-meters when he chose Kittley and Texas Tech.
He became Tech's first male national champion in 2006, winning the 800-meters, and went on to earn a spot on the U.S. Olympic team as a junior.
"That started everything in people looking at us differently," Kittley said. Texas Tech has since produced 15 individual NCAA national championships under Kittley's watch and 10 Olympians - six of which have medaled.
The Kittley tenure has seen greats such as Sally Kipyego, who set an NCAA record with nine individual national titles during her remarkable run, and Kennedy Kithuka who went unbeaten during the 2012 NCAA cross country season en route to winning his first of two NCAA titles.
"Wes Kittley is a tremendous leader who has a driving desire and passion to be the very best," Texas Tech Director of Athletics Kirby Hocutt said. "Simply, he is the best track and field coach in the nation."
But for Kittley, it's not always the immediate impact, the trophy or podium recognition. His passion for athletes runs deeper than that.
"It's about relationships," Kittley said. "I feel like you can get a lot out of kids if you create a relationship with them. I definitely want them to come back in 10 years and think something of their old coach. I say that all the time. That's what is most important. I know I've been successful if that happens."
Players Mentioned
