Why BYU has so many track athletes at the Olympics, and why this may be just the beginning

Saint-Denis, France • They were like a blister on his big toe and another on his heel. Increasingly, the nudges by BYU head coach Ed Eyestone and assistant coach Ryan Waite for James Corrigan to try steeplechase became more and more difficult to ignore. And any success Corrigan had just made it worse.

“I finished first for our team in cross country or I’d run the fastest freshman time in a while,” Corrigan said, “and they’d say, ‘Think about how good this is going to be for your steeple.’ And it got on my nerves a little bit.

“I was like, ‘Oh my goodness. Why can’t I just do everything else? I’m good at this stuff. And I think they really saw that, because I was good at everything, it was going to allow me to flourish in the steeple.”

Eventually, Corrigan saw it, too. He dedicated his sophomore year at BYU to competing in steeplechase — a discipline that rarely receives the respect it deserves considering it involves not only running 3,000 meters (nearly 2 miles) while jumping over hurdles and across water barriers, all at a breakneck pace.

His final race of that 2024 season will be in the Olympics, and he won’t be going alone.

A record seven BYU athletes, past and current, will race this week in Paris. That’s the most in the history of the track program at the school, which dates back to 1899 (The Cougars had six track Olympians in both 1984 and 2000). Their numbers rank sixth among NCAA programs represented at the Games. Moreover, the private school run by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has never before had multiple women compete for a medal in long-distance events.

The superlatives number almost as many as the athletes. And neither Eyestone nor women’s coach Diljeet Taylor nor the athletes themselves believe that success is an anomaly. It took luck, sure. But the reputation of BYU as a track powerhouse, they agree, has just begun to build.

“Iron sharpens iron,” Courtney Wayment said minutes after qualifying for the women’s steeplechase final Sunday at Stade de France. “And I know that everyone, including myself, all believe in each other. I think there’s more to come in the next four years.”

BYU’s bond

The feasting table for the Cougars, Eyestone said, was set in during the United States Olympic marathon trials in Florida in February. Clayton Young and Conner Mantz put out the placemats when they finished 1-2 to grab both of Team USA’s spots in the race.

Eyestone said their successes begat further success by BYU athletes.

“I think we’re fortunate that we kicked off early with our marathoners,” Eyestone said. “Because with the trials being back in February, I think the rest of the track team seeing two guys who were All-Americans for us and are in the system and are continuing to hang around here and I continue to coach — to see them have that success, I think then spurs on the other people.”

A few weeks later, another Cougar joined the Paris marathon pack. Rory Linkletter ran the Olympic qualifying standard at a race in Spain to seal his spot with Team Canada.

At the U.S. Track and Field Trials in June, BYU singlets were ubiquitous. With 17 athletes, the school had more entries than any other NCAA program. So, going by the numbers, Eyestone said it made sense a few Cougars would get through.

On the men’s side, Kenneth Rooks made sure he was one of them by winning his second straight national title in the men’s steeplechase. Corrigan, meanwhile, surprised everyone by placing third in the race after shaving 8 seconds off his personal best time. He then, incredibly, shaved 8 seconds off that time less than a week later to meet the Olympic qualifying standard and secure his spot in Paris.

Maybe his coaches knew what they were talking about.

Next thing he knew, Corrigan was floating down the Seine in the Opening Ceremony alongside Mantz, Young and Rooks and taking pictures with another BYU Olympian, 3x3 basketball player Jimmer Fredette. A few days later, all four runners could be found in a pack gliding down a dirt road outside pastoral St. Moritz, Switzerland.

Corrigan, who had never been out of the country — not even to serve his church mission — said it could all be overwhelming if he was doing it alone. Instead, in addition to training partners, the Cougars pack has given him a sounding board for his excitement and his fears.

“Just every time we went somewhere or did something I thought about how different it would be if I was traveling alone, or if I was the only one that qualified,” said Corrigan, 22, who made his steeplechase debut alongside Rooks Monday night. “That I had a connection to BYU … it makes it so special. It feels like I can relax a little more because it’s like I’m part of a team even though we’re all doing different events and we’re in different stages in life. I just feel like I have a team around me.”

Mantz, 27, and Young, 30, agree that having that connection, that partner, has given them an edge.

They only ran together for a season at BYU. Yet both retained Eyestone, himself a two-time Olympic marathoner (1988, ‘92), as their coach when they turned pro. During the intervening years, they’ve grown increasingly close. In fact, as they prepared to qualify for, and now to compete in, the Olympics, they became nearly inseparable.

“We’re probably doing 80% of all of our mileage and workouts and even things like sauna sessions and lifting and eating,” Young said shortly after the trials. “Like, we almost see each other more than we see our wives sometimes. We’ve spent a lot of time together.”

But that bond got them both across the finish line of the trials. Mantz said he started to struggle in the final mile. Young said don’t worry, just stick with me. And so, with Mantz zeroed in on the tape and Young soaking in the moment, they achieved their shared goal.

“That [bond is] one of the reasons why we, I think, performed so well at the Olympic trials,” Young said. “And that is going to be one of the reasons why we perform well in the Paris Games.”

Eyestone said his staff works hard to find athletes who will fit together and fit in at the school. BYU is known for its strict code of conduct that prohibits growing facial hair and drinking coffee, tea or alcohol, among other behaviors.

That “doesn’t necessarily mean they need to be LDS, it just means that they are prepared to live a little bit different,” Eyestone said. “Not every collegiate wants to go through that. But I’m finding more and more that I think that’s led to some success. And that’s not a bad thing.”

It hasn’t been too much of an issue either. If the athletes on the track this week aren’t enough proof, Eyestone said he just signed what he expects will be considered one of the top recruiting classes in the country.

A common theme

Wayment had someone she wanted to go to the Olympics with, too: Coach Diljeet Taylor.

Taylor has long said she never had any interest in coaching pro athletes. She’d also never coached an Olympian. Yet Wayment cornered the coach in 2021 after the graduating senior finished fourth in steeplechase at the Tokyo Olympic trials.

“I sure would hate to go to the Olympics without you,” Wayment said. Whittni Orton Morgan, a 5,000-meter runner who had also run out of eligibility at BYU, piled on.

Her head said no, Taylor said, but her heart said yes. Now she’s in Paris with two runners in the Olympic finals.

On Saturday, Morgan, a 26-year-old Panguitch native, ran a season-best time in her 5,000-meter heat to record the ninth-best time in the 16-runner field.

Meanwhile, Wayment, a 26-year-old Kaysville native, turned in a steady performance in Sunday’s steeplechase heats. She sat in fourth for most of the race and that’s where she finished, though she only made the top-five finals-qualifying cut by two-tenths of a second. Her final was set for Tuesday.

Taylor has made a habit of writing her athletes personalized notes before every big meet. On Sunday, Wayment said her note reminded her to have faith.

“Last [trials], I felt very depressed. I left that track heartbroken, and I promised myself that I would learn and I would grow in some area through my faith and my love for the sport,” Wayment said, “And so that kind of notion about faith I think is very fitting for this year.”

Though they are both seeing results, the men’s and women’s programs have gone about raising the bar in different ways. While members of the men’s team lean on each other for emotional support and turn to Eyestone for words of wisdom, Morgan and Wayment would run through fire for Taylor.

But their relationship is symbiotic, Taylor said. And if the number of Cougars in Paris is any indication, both appear to be working.

“The joke is that being an Olympian is kind of becoming a common theme around Provo,” Taylor said. “Like you’re an Olympian and you’re an Olympian and you’re an Olympian.

“But I just don’t want to lose sight of how hard it is to make it to this international level of competition in an Olympic cycle, which is once every four years. So just the timing that has to happen for it to come together like this is what makes it really special.”

Some athletes were ready to go. Others needed a little nudge. However they got there, this year BYU got the timing just right.