You may get a conflicting answer if you ask Steve Rainbolt about the recent success of Wichita State’s track and field program.

The men’s team won back-to-back American Conference Outdoor Championships in 2022 and 2023. They’ve placed in the top five every year since then. But Rainbolt would describe the women’s team as a group that’s rebuilding since joining the conference. The only title they’ve won was in 2019.

“We’ve had really good success in women’s track and cross-country,” the Shockers’ 26th-year head coach said. “Right now, we’re in what I will refer to as a ‘rebuilding mode.’ We don’t like that. We want to be battling for conference titles in women’s track and field.”

He goes back to a photo that hangs in his office, sitting on the northeast corner of the Student-Athlete Success Center next to Koch Arena. The photo shows the 2004 team posed with both the men’s and women’s Missouri Valley Conference trophies in front of them. It was Rainbolt’s fourth season at the helm.

For the program, the photo is a blast to the past. For Rainbolt, it’s what he envisions for the future of Wichita State’s track and field program.

“We’ve won 36 titles in my 25 years here,” Rainbolt said. “Winning the conference championship is how I measure our success. We win conference titles, or I feel like we’ve got to figure out why we didn’t win and what we need to do to win next time.”

Where the women’s team can score big

An elementary answer to what the Shockers’ women’s track and field team needs is recruitment — and recruitment of “real good athletes,” alongside developers, is at the heart of the rebuild.

“We need to recruit better athletes all the time. Continue upping the profile of the athletes that we are recruiting,” Rainbolt put it plainly. “Well, we’re working hard on that. We’re trying real hard to fill our team with better and better athletes.”

But that’s too simple. Beyond recruitment, Rainbolt still needs to figure out how to get to the next level.

He said the coaching staff analyzes how other teams in the conference “exploit” certain areas and events. It’s not the kind of exploitation that bends rules to create an unfair advantage.

It’s knowing what areas are tougher to score in than others, then recruiting to fill those gaps.

“I use the term ‘exploit,’ where you can exploit that,” Rainbolt said. “Where you can recruit to that event and go, ‘Hey, we can score some points in that event if we can get two or three good athletes in that event. Then, we’ll get them up in the scoring.”

One event he sees real strength in this season is the women’s pole vault.

Four vaulters traveled to the DeLoss Dodds invitational on Jan. 30, and all four placed in the top 10 of the meet. At the home Coach Wilson Invitational the same weekend, sophomore Alexis Phillips took home silver with a 3.69-meter vault.

“I’ve seen a strong group from the previous meet and previous years. They’re really strong,” senior Lucy Ndungu said. 

Along with the pole vaulters, Ndungu and the distance runners are also poised to score for the Shockers. Graduate Sarah Bertry is coming off a successful cross-country season. So is freshman Mercy Jepkoech.

Freshman Vivien Joritch Kipkorir out of Iten, Kenya, is also expected to be near the top of women’s distance times.

“Wherever they’ve came from, they have a pretty strong image of showing they’re able to score at the conference level,” Ndungu said. “Specifically, the 5k, 3k and the mile.”

It’s an encouraging sign for Rainbolt.

“We can be a solid, upper-division team on the women’s side,” he said.

The men’s side of the American is no joke

Only one conference has been faster in men’s sprints than the American over the past few track and field seasons: the Southeastern Conference.

In 2024, it took a 20.47 second time to qualify for the finals of the SEC Outdoor Championships in the 200 meters. For the American’s runners, the time was 20.56 seconds and 20.91 seconds in the Big 12.

Just last year, 9.99 seconds led the preliminaries during the men’s 100 meters at the SEC Championships. The top time was 10.21 seconds in the American, followed by the Big 12’s top time at 10.31.

“All those other conferences — the Big 10, the Big 12, the Pac-12, the ACC — none of them were as tough as our league. Except the SEC,” Rainbolt said. “It was almost equal. So, what are you going to do? Recruit to that event? 

“It’s an awfully tough event to recruit to. They better be a pretty good athlete, or they’re not going to make the final. They’re just not.

“They’re not going to make the final if they’re not an awfully good athlete, or until they develop. And that’s a possibility, but that’s the new world that we live in.”

Only one goal sits in the minds of Wichita State’s men’s sprinters: win both the indoor and outdoor conference championships.

“I go to meets thinking that I can win,” junior Jason Parrish said. “I know most of our athletes in the program, they’re going in with the same mindset (of) whatever it takes. They’re going to try to win or place high enough to get All-Conference at the conference meet.”

Distance events, like on the women’s side, are also a strength of this season’s team. The Shockers have welcomed newcomers in Elkana Kipruto and Kelvin Kipyego, who have been off to a record-setting start since the cross-country season.

Kipruto, in his first season sporting the black and yellow, has shattered program records like the men’s 8-kilometer and became the first Wichita State cross-country runner to win a conference title since 1992. He also set a record in the men’s 5,000-meter by nearly 30 seconds.

Both Kirputo and Kipyego have entered the top 10 in program history in the men’s mile and 3,000-meter. Sophomore Chairo Ogbebor has also etched his name in the record books after a 6.65-second 60-meter race at the Coach Wilson Invitational.

Teammates knew right away that Kipruto would be special.

“I seen him train once, and just the stride pattern and everything he does,” Parrish said. “During cross-country, when he eventually won (the conference) and made nationals, is when I knew he’s the real deal.”

It may not be the 2004 team that won both the men’s and women’s conference titles, but Rainbolt is confident that the 2026 Wichita State track and field squad has what it takes to compete at the top.

“We’ve got a very, very nice men’s team that’s going to be tough to beat at the American Conference Championship in Birmingham, Ala.,” he said. “But on the women’s side, our team is not as strong. It’s a good team. In fact, I’m pleased with how things look early on. … I think we stand a good chance of achieving our goal of finishing in the upper-half of the conference.”