Clayton Pritchard

Biography

Assistant coach Clayton Pritchard has revitalized the Bison jumps and sprints programs since joining the NDSU track & field coaching staff in July 2016. He enters his 10th year as an assistant coach for the Bison in the 2025-26 season. In his first four seasons, he coached the Bison women to 18 new performances that rank among the school’s all-time Top 10 in the jumps, headlined by Piper Jensen standing in the top five in NDSU history in the indoor & outdoor triple jump and indoor & outdoor long jump. Jensen reached 42 feet in the triple jump, broke the 20-foot barrier in the long jump, and won a pair of Summit League titles. Four of the top 10 women’s triple jumpers in NDSU indoor history have come in the past three seasons under Pritchard’s direction. On the men’s side, he has coached athletes into NDSU’s all-time Top 5 in the long jump, triple jump and high jump in the past three years. In 2016 – the season before Pritchard’s arrival at NDSU – the Bison women and men combined to score 42 team points in the long jump and triple jump at the Summit League Championships. In 2019, the Bison racked up a remarkable 145 points in the long jump and triple jump at the conference meets – multiplying their output by nearly 3 1/2 times. In the men’s short sprints, Pritchard coached J.T. Butler into NDSU’s all-time Top 5 in the 60m dash (6.84), indoor 200m (21.63), and outdoor 200m (20.94) in the 2019 season, earning a qualifying spot at the NCAA West Preliminary Rounds. Pritchard took