Cornell University Women's Track & Field

Mike Henderson Title Alan B. '53 and Elizabeth Heekin Harris Head Coach of Women's Track & Field/Men's and Women's Cross Country Email mh2425@cornell.edu

Ethan Sandusky was hired as an assistant coach for the Big Red in October of 2022. He is in charge of assisting with the vertical jumps and decathlon. In his first season, Sandusky helped Victoria Atkinson reach a new indoor school record in the women's pole vault with a mark of 4.17m, one of five top 10 school marks in his events. While at Cornell, Sandusky's athletes have set one school record, earned two Ivy League Championship medals and have been conference scorers five times. Sandusky had served as assistant coach/recruiting coordinator at Tulane from 2019-22. During his tenure on the Green Wave staff, his student-athletes accomplished three school records, three AAC Championship medals, 13 AAC Championship scorers, 12 Tulane top 10 school records and five scholastic All-Americans. He came to New Orleans from Fayetteville, Ark., where he served as a volunteer coach at the University of Arkansas since August 2018. Monitoring and assisting with all field events for the men's and women's programs – primarily pole vault and high jump – Sandusky helped his athletes achieve many accomplishments over the past year. The women's indoor and outdoor teams were crowned NCAA Champions and SEC Champions (the Triple Crown), while the men's indoor team finished the season as SEC runner-up and two of his student-athletes finished as NCAA individual champions, with six earning All-America honors in 2019. Before his time with the Razorbacks, he spent two seasons as a volunteer coach at th

Jacky Mendes joined the Big Red track and field staff as an assistant coach in 2021. Mendes has spent the past decade coaching at various levels of college track and field, bringing varied experiences to the Big Red staff and having specialized in working with the jumps and multi-events over the course of her career. Mendes comes to Cornell from Bucknell (2021), where she coached the jumps and multi-events. She was the program's academic coordinator and the community service liaison. Prior to her stint at Bucknell, Mendes served in similar roles at Duke (2020-21) and her alma mater, New Hampshire (2018-20). At Duke, she helped the Blue Devils to the ACC outdoor title. Coaching the jumps, she had four athletes post top four all-time marks in school history and qualify for the NCAA East Preliminary Round. During her time at New Hampshire, her student-athletes set five individual school records and won IC4A and America East titles. Track athletes also won an NCAA title in the women's mile and were All-Americans in three other events. Mendes spent three seasons as head coach at Merrimack College (2014-17), overseeing all aspects of the program. She assisted in the development of a six-time national champion, 12-time All-American and Olympic Trials runner. Her time there also resulted in All-Americans in the 4x400 relay in two straight seasons, as well as in the heptathlon and decathlon. As a student-athlete at the University of New Hampshire, Mendes was a four-year letter winner

A native of Seattle, Wash., Evans is a 2013 graduate of the University of Washington, specializing in the distance events. She was a member of the Husky team that placed third at the 2009 NCAA DI Women's Cross Country National Championship, with additional Pac 10 and 12, West Region, and NCAA championship experience in cross country and track & field. Evans joined the Cornell coaching staff in May of 2023 with responsibilities working with the men's and women's distance team. Since joining the Big Red, Evans has aided in the development of the men's and women's distance and mid-distance athletes. Most notably, she has aided in the Ivy League- and NCAA-competition success of Augustine Haquet, Damian Hackett, and Rhys Hammond. At Minnesota State, Evans aided in the development of many high-achievers, including an NCAA DII All-American, three NCAA DII qualifiers, two all-region performers, two NSIC champions, two NSIC runners-up, and a season-long national team ranking in cross country. Prior to Minnesota State, Evans spent four years as the head cross country and track and field coach at Newport HS in Bellevue, Wash., where under her leadership, the program revived and produced a cross country district championship, top 10 state cross country team, a state champion, multiple district champions, and numerous collegiate athletes.

Phipps joined the Big Red track and field staff as an assistant coach of throws in September 2016. Throughout Phipps' years as an assistant coach of throws at Cornell, he has coached numerous athletes to top-10 throws on the Cornell career record list. Before his coaching days, Phipps was a successful athlete himself at Baldwin-Wallace, his alma mater. He was a six-time DIII All-American and a seven-time Ohio Athletic Conference champion with 12 all-conference honors. He also played four years of varsity football for the YellowJackets and captained the team as a senior, earning all-conference honors as a defensive tackle. Phipps came to Cornell after five years as an assistant coach at Baldwin-Wallace University in Berea, Ohio, where he was named the 2016 U.S. Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association DIII Women's National Assistant Coach of the Year. He helped the Baldwin-Wallace women's indoor team to the 2016 NCAA DIII national championship and coached three national champions, 11 All-Americans, and 36 NCAA national championship meet qualifiers.