When Parker Duskin clicked onto a Zoom link sent to the Washington State University Track & Field team and saw the amount of people on the call, he knew it wasn’t a good sign.
The call lasted around nine minutes, but it boiled down to WSU athletic director Anne McCoy informing the team that the university would be cutting its field events and scaling back on sprints and hurdles, instead focusing more on its distance events moving forward, as first reported by The Spokesman-Review on Monday.
Duskin, a rising senior sprinter/hurdler that just competed on the Cougars men’s 400-meter relay at the NCAA Outdoor Track & Field National Championships on June 11, was disappointed and confused. He described his teammates’ reactions as “a lot of sadness and frustration.”
The Arlington High School alum grew up dreaming of competing for Washington State, which is where his parents and grandparents attended college. He ultimately achieved that dream, but it was cut shorter than he expected.
“I’m a Coug at heart, and I’ll always be a Coug, but that’s not ‘the Cougar Way,’” Duskin told The Herald over the phone on Tuesday. “I understand there needs to be cuts, but we’ve always been slim as a program. … It just seems kind of like an easy way out for the university, but I don’t blame them. I understand that there’s things that need to be met.”
According to Duskin, the team was told the reason for gutting the program was to support its “most successful” program, referring to the distance athletes. The statement released by the athletic department on Monday said, in part: “This change gives the WSU Track & Field program the best opportunity to remain competitive at the conference and national levels in distance events in cross country, indoor track and field, and outdoor track and field.”
In the 2024 cross country season, the men’s and women’s teams each placed third at the WCC Championships, but failed to advance past the NCAA West Regional with the women placing seventh and the men placing ninth. Of the five Washington State athletes who qualified for the Outdoor Track & Field Championships from June 11-14, four were sprinters: Mason Lawyer in the men’s 100 and 200 as well as in the 400 relay alongside Duskin, Bryson Stubblefield and Keenan Kurtz.
In the 2024-25 season, WSU sprints had a pair of Indoor All-Americans: Micaela De Mello on the women’s first team and Lawyer on the men’s second team. (Pole vaulter Tatum Moku earned second-team honors along with distance-athlete Evans Kurui in the 5,000.)
WSU sprints won indoor conference championships in five events this year, and set eight new school records across the indoor and outdoor seasons. WSU assistant coach Gabriel Mvumvure highlighted all these program achievements, among others, in an Instagram post on June 2.
Duskin cited those accolades as a reason for confusion when it comes to the university’s decision.
“Unless you’re living under a rock, you know the sprints and jumps program is what’s been helping our team in the last 25 years,” Duskin said. “We were the most successful. Not just me, it’s just on paper.”
Duskin acknowledged he did not know what was discussed in the meetings that took place on the department’s end to reach the decision, but he is also unsure how it will save the program money. So far, the school has not disclosed the projected financial savings of the move.
Following the news, Duskin entered the transfer portal, which he referred to as a “prosperous” opportunity in spite of his disappointment. He has a visit scheduled with Alabama this weekend and is in the process of setting up others.
Duskin’s former coach, Arlington’s Judd Hunter, expressed excitement for the new opportunities in front of Duskin, but also wonders about the long-term impact of the transfer portal.
“It also takes away from building a program,” Hunter said. “If you’re always pulling, as a coach, from that portal and experience, when are you building programs? So I don’t know, I’m just waiting it out and seeing how it goes.”
Grant Buckmiller, a Lake Stevens alum who finished his sophomore season with the Cougars, had already entered the transfer portal before Monday’s announcement. Despite setting school records in the men’s indoor 300 (32.73 seconds) and 400 (46.20) this season — which helped him earn Cougars Sophomore Athlete of the Year — Buckmiller entered the portal in late May.
Buckmiller cited “a couple problems” related to funding that prompted him to search for a fresh start elsewhere on at a school that will compete for team titles on a national level. Despite foreseeing the direction of the WSU program and getting out, Buckmiller was surprised by the manner in which the school revealed the news to the team once he heard about it from his former teammates.
“In telling them so late, I don’t think that was kind of like the respectful way to do it,” Buckmiller said, pointing to the stressful nature of the recruiting process out of the portal.
For two athletes from the area, the past month has been a whirlwind of triumph on the track mixed with disappointment and confusion off it, but both Buckmiller and Duskin expect to land on their feet at new programs that will set them up for success.
“I just don’t think it’s the ‘Cougar Way,’” Duskin said. “We’ve always fought our way to figure it out, and this was just an easy ‘get-out’ for them.”
Two current members of the WSU Track & Field team declined to comment. One directed The Herald to WSU athletics communications director Bill Stevens to speak on their behalf. The other athlete initially agreed to interview with The Herald at a scheduled time, but canceled shortly after with the same directive as the first teammate.
Stevens and Jim Crawford, a WSU assistant director of athletics communications, did not respond to The Herald’s request for comment.
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