When Steve Rainbolt finished his fifth season as the track and field head coach at Kent State, he wanted to return home.

“I was far from my family, and so this was a chance to get back home,” Rainbolt said.

Rainbolt, a Kansas native, chose to come to Wichita State. He stayed here and is now celebrating 25 years as the Shockers’ track and field head coach.

Rainbolt grew up in the Kansas City area, attended Shawnee Mission East High School and high jumped at the University of Kansas. At the time in 2000, there were two positions open for him: a KU job and a WSU job.

Rainbolt expressed interest in filling the job at his alma mater, according to a phone interview with KU Sports at the time.

However, the job eventually went to Stanley Redwine, the current head coach at KU, who is also celebrating his 25th year.

Like many track and field athletes in the state, Rainbolt spent plenty of time at University Stadium, formerly Cessna Stadium, during his youth.

“First time I came to Wichita (was) to Cessna Stadium,” Rainbolt said. “I was 13 years old, and I came from Kansas City for a Junior Olympic track meet … Then I came during high school because they hosted state track. Then I came (back) all during college because back then, there was a huge meet here.”

Rainbolt said former WSU athletic director Jim Schaus “did a good job” of recruiting him and that he “couldn’t have asked for much better.” Rainbolt eventually took the WSU position because he would have a chance to influence state track meets and become a local figure in Wichita.

The beginnings

Rainbolt took over as head coach after John Kornelson, a legend in Kansas track and field, left. Kornelson had been experiencing health scares at the time he stepped down from the job in 2000.

Assistant coach Heidi Benton (then known as Heidi Yost) was a sophomore long jumper when Rainbolt took the job.

“When he first got here, (he was) very personable,” Benton said. “(He) wanted all the athletes to come see him. He had kind of an open-door policy.

“This was an opportunity for him to build a program from scratch, because the roster wasn’t very big.”

Benton said that at the time, the roster was about 40 men and women combined. This was appealing to Rainbolt.

“He was enthusiastic about building a program that had his stamp of approval on it, instead of taking one over,” Benton said. “(He) had an opportunity to recruit a bunch and to formulate a vision and a plan.”

Rainbolt had quick success, winning the men’s Missouri Valley Conference Outdoor Championships three times from 2002 to 2004. In the women’s outdoor championships, he won four times in a row from 2004 to 2007.

Rainbolt attributed his success to building a complete program. A program that focuses on all kinds of events rather than a specific subsection of track and field.

“I’m really thankful that I’ve been at a place where I could have a complete program,” Rainbolt said. “A complete program means we’ve had good athletes in all the event areas … and we’ve tried to be good in all of them.”

The quirks and features of ‘boltism’

“I believe in reasonableness,” Rainbolt said. “I have a number of different sayings, and of them would be, ‘Reasonableness must prevail.’”

During his time at Wichita State, Rainbolt’s athletes have noted his choice of words, which have been termed “boltisms.”

“(His) vocabulary is one that’s hard to match,” former athlete Cooper Hanning said. “The words he uses are words that … aren’t words that most people use in everyday life. So we started writing down all the different things that he would say.”

Rainbolt would often bring up past performers when speaking to his athletes.

“He would say things like, ‘That guy was a significant athlete back in the day. Guy was significant. That guy would take things to another level,’” Hanning said. “He was very charismatic about making his point.”

Multiple athletes have noted Rainbolt for his high enthusiasm and the overall energy he brought to the team.

“He would have a holler that he would do across the field, no matter where you were,” former athlete Patric Jackson said. “You could hear him doing it, and it was his way of showing athletes, ‘Hey, I see you.’”

Hanning admitted to Rainbolt being a “loud dude.” He said his speech was nothing short of entertaining. Teammate and good friend of Hanning, Jackson said that one of his favorite “boltisms” was “blithering idiot.”

“‘Blithering idiot’ was one of the funny things he would just kind of throw out there to point out how silly something might have been when you could have done something really easily and you chose to do something in a more difficult path,” Jackson said.

While a successful coach in any right, Rainbolt is not without his quirks.

“I would say he’s very messy-minded, but he communicates very well with me,” current senior Destiny Masters said. “But if you aren’t a good communicator, then he won’t be, so I get a different side of ‘Bolt because I am a good athlete.”

Hanning recalled a story about a road trip with Rainbolt.

“He was pretty notorious for getting distracted or needing to respond to a text message,” Hanning said. “So (he) needed like 30 seconds, and so he would just have somebody reach over and have the wheel while he answered his text message.”

The approach

Rainbolt has trained plenty of great athletes under his tutelage as the head coach. Part of that is finding local talent, such as former sprinter Audacia Moore, who ran track at Heights High School.

“Audacia Moore was a great athlete on our team, one of the very best in the history of the program,” Rainbolt said. “She was running to break her mom’s (Alicia Moore) school records, and successfully broke her mom’s school records.”

Besides the local stars in Wichita, Rainbolt has found great athletes from small towns in Kansas.

“All those All-Americans there,” Rainbolt said while pointing to a wall of WSU athletes. 

“There’s a whole bunch of small-town Kansas kids in there,” he said. “Like Ben Johnson, Tanya Friesen, Chris Dickman, Hunter Veith, Gavyn Yetter, J’Lynn Ledesma, all small-town Kansas kids. And now Destiny (Masters), small-town Kansas girl.”

Rainbolt said that his formula for success has been successful for them. Developing athletes is a challenge that he enjoys.

“I like that better than recruiting ready-made superstars,” Rainbolt said. “Now, anybody likes a ready-made superstar. I mean, those are great. But man, what a gratifying and meaningful endeavor to recruit and help develop an athlete from basically walk-on status to being really, really good.”

Talent evaluation is one of many things that make Rainbolt successful, but Hanning also praised his ability to find ways to cover his weaknesses.

“He’s not a very detailed guy and he’s not into the logistics,” Hanning said. “He’s a big picture person. And so he’s surrounded himself with people that are really skilled in those other areas. What it’s done is it’s allowed people (to say), ‘Hey, we’re going to capture the vision of this guy who is crazy enough to lead us into battle and wants to see this team succeed.’”

Rainbolt has enjoyed continuity within his coaching staff, including the aforementioned Benton, with coaches such as John Hetzendorf, who was on his inaugural staff in 2000. Hetzendorf followed Rainbolt to WSU after he was coached by him at Kent State.

Legacy

Rainbolt is not as spry as he once was at the age of 42, especially with two knee replacements. It was not uncommon to see him putting on demonstrations for his athletes, but as he has adapted to his older body, he has adapted to today’s college landscape.

“He’s definitely more to the point now, he wants things done,” Masters said. “He wants it done the right way, but he’s definitely relaxed a lot more. He’s definitely more lenient with athletes. Like, if we need to go to the pool (or) we have injuries, he’ll allow us. And he definitely works with us.”

Jackson, now the principal of Stucky Middle School in Wichita, recalled his experience with Rainbolt as a young high jumper at Wichita Southeast High School.

“I remember as a little kid, we would go to basketball games and baseball games,” Jackson said. “I actually approached him, probably when I was a sophomore in high school. I saw him out there and just kind of asked him what kinds of things it would take to make it on his track team.”

On his recruitment dinner with Rainbolt, Jackson chose to eat at Da Cajun Shak. He speculated that he was the only one to choose that restaurant. 

Rainbolt recalled that dinner.

“So he’s (Jackson) a local guy,” Rainbolt said. “He chose Da Cajun Shak. So we went to Da Cajun Shak for all you could eat catfish and gumbo. But I loved it. I thought it was great.”

Jackson himself took some coaching philosophies from his college days and applied them to his time when he used to coach track and field at Wichita Southeast.

“I know one of the big things he instilled in me was the term, ‘Be a student of your event,’” Jackson said. “I can’t just show up and practice and assume I’m going to get better. So as a coach, I would print off articles and find links to videos that my athletes could use.”

Jackson also said he’s taken some of Rainbolt’s frequent gestures and mannerisms.

“I found myself using some of the same gestures and some of the same motions,” Jackson said. “I felt like some things became very automatic or came really naturally, because as I was explaining something or processing something, it was almost like ‘Bolt was coming out and doing it.”

While Coach ‘Bolt may not be standing up nearly as much during practices as he used to — sometimes he might even be sitting in a chair — his energy has otherwise remained the same.

“It doesn’t matter if you’re a new freshman walking in or a fifth-year senior or a member of the coaching staff or an ex-athlete,” Jackson said. “It’s hard for anybody to keep up with Coach Rainbolt. He’s got a mind that’s always thinking of the next step.”

Rainbolt’s athletes want to see a meet named after him in the future.

“I think it would be a disservice to Wichita State track and field and possibly cross country, if ‘Bolt did not have some form of a legacy event that was his namesake,” Jackson said.

“We have the JK Gold (Classic), and then we have the Coach Wilson Invitational for two of our former coaches,” Benton said. “Coach Herm Wilson and coach Pat Wilson and so I definitely think there should be one for coach Rainbolt.”