Bio

Named the first full-time head coach in Tennessee Tech’s cross country and track & field program’s histories, Wayne Angel hit the ground running upon his arrival in 2014 and changed the trajectory of all three teams throughout his five-year career in Cookeville.

In a very literal sense, Angel built his Tech programs from the ground up when he arrived on campus ahead of the 2014-15 season. By 2017-18, his fourth campaign at TTU, the Angel-led Golden Eagles broke through in a major way, notching the indoor/outdoor sweep of the Ohio Valley Championships, the first two track & field titles in Tennessee Tech history.

Tech scored 137 points at the 2018 OVC Indoor Championships, recording a convincing 31-point victory for its first-ever championship. Riding significant momentum, Angel's club took it a step further at the OVC Outdoor Championships later that year, dropping 151 points in front of the home crowd at Tech's Tucker Stadium and amassing a 50-point cushion over runner-up Murray State.

In 2019, the Golden Eagles made it three consecutive crowns by repeating as champs at the 2019 OVC Indoor Championships. The team wasn’t far off from capturing three straight indoor titles, claiming a runner-up showing in 2017.

During his tenure, Angel oversaw the recruitment and development of one of the most successful runners in the program history in Gilbert Boit. The youngster made an instant impact, capturing OVC Male Freshman of the Year honors before going on to win the OVC Men’s Cross Country Championship and earn a spot on the All-Region Team. As a sophomore, he followed it up with another dominant season, establishing program records for the 6K, 8K, and 10K before earning OVC Men’s Athlete of the Year. In the fall of 2018, Angel guided the men's squad to a third-place finish at the OVC Championships, the program's highest finish in over 50 years (1967).

On the women's side, he oversaw the dominance of 2018 OVC Female Athlete of the Year Purity Sanga, who claimed the league's individual championship, and did not finish lower than third overall at any race during the regular season. She earned OVC Women’s Freshman of the Year accolades in 2017 before becoming the first and only NCAA Cross Country Finalist in program history, qualifying twice for the top race in the nation.

Under Angel's tutelage, Sanga went on to claim an OVC Female Track Athlete of the Year honor during the 2019 indoor season – while helping the Golden Eagles to their third straight OVC Championship – and then did it again during the outdoor campaign, making her the first female OVC athlete to win Cross Country Runner of the Year and Indoor and Outdoor Track Athlete of the Year in the same season since Eastern Kentucky's Jamie King in 1997-98.

Sanga wasn’t the first of Angel’s pupils to start on the track, with Micayla Rennick running a clean sweep of the sport’s honors during the 2017-18 campaign. Rennick captured both Female Track Athlete of the Year and Female Athlete of the Championships at both the OVC’s indoor and outdoor championships, becoming just the third student-athlete to accomplish the feat in league history.

Na’Asha Robinson shined behind the coaching of Angel, becoming the women’s track & field program’s first-ever All-American and the first female runner in Tech history to advance to the NCAA Championships.

Throughout his Tech career, Angel was named OVC Indoor Track & Field Coach of the Year in 2017, 2018, and 2019 and earned OVC Outdoor Track & Field Coach of the Year accolades in 2018. The student-athletes under his guidance still hold 33 of the nearly 50 records broken during his tenure while four still hold current OVC records.

Angel was named as one of seven Coaches of Note as part of the OVC’s 75^th Anniversary Team for women’s track & field, released during the 2022-23 season in celebration of the league’s historic milestone. Four Golden Eagles coached by Angel were also named to the list.

Following the 2018-19 campaign, Angel embarked on a new journey by accepting the position of director of track & field / cross country at the University of Northern Colorado, one he still holds today.