Outperform instructors

Ken Harnden is Auburn's head track and field and cross country coach. He joined the Tigers in 2022 as associate head coach for sprints and took over the program in 2026, the season his group produced the fastest 110m hurdles in history, Ja'Kobe Tharp's 12.75 at the NCAA Championships, and Kanyinsola Ajayi's NCAA titles at 60m and 100m, Auburn's first 100m title since 1980.

Over more than two decades at Florida State, Tennessee and Auburn he has coached 24 Olympians, 31 NCAA individual champions, more than 200 first-team All-Americans and eight sprinters under 10 seconds in the 100m, among them Walter Dix, the 2008 Olympic bronze medalist at 100m and 200m. The USTFCCCA has named him National Assistant Coach of the Year eight times.

He competed before he coached: the 400m hurdles for Zimbabwe at the 1996 and 2000 Olympics, the 1995 NCAA title at North Carolina, bronze at the 1998 Commonwealth Games and a Zimbabwe record of 48.05. His three courses run from drill selection to a full season's speed progression.

Karim Abdel Wahab is the associate head coach for sprints and hurdles at the University of Georgia, where he has coached since 2023. In 2026 Dejanea Oakley won the NCAA 400m indoors and outdoors, the outdoor title in a collegiate record of 48.79. In 2025 Aaliyah Butler won the NCAA outdoor 400m and Will Floyd the indoor 400m, and the USTFCCCA named Karim its national women's assistant coach of the year for the outdoor season.

He coached Egypt's national team at the 2012 and 2016 Olympics and at World Championships, and his sprinters have represented four countries at the Games: Amr Seoud and Anas Beshr for Egypt, Janay DeLoach and Wadeline Jonathas for the United States, Aliyah Abrams for Guyana and Christopher Morales Williams for Canada. Before Georgia he coached five seasons at South Carolina and eight at Colorado State, where his athletes set 13 school records.

He has coached since 1996, starting at Al Gezira Sports Club in Cairo. He teaches sprint technique and drills in Sprinting Smarter, Sprinting Faster and co-teaches Hurdling Smarter with Kevin Brown.

Kevin Brown has coached at the University of South Carolina since 2000, where he leads the pole vault, jumps and relays and serves as recruiting coordinator. His group has included Quincy Hall, who won the 2019 NCAA 400m hurdles title at South Carolina and the 2024 Olympic 400m, Lakya Brookins, NCAA 60m champion in 2009 and 2011, and Filip Demsar, the 2023 SEC indoor 60m hurdles champion. In 2026 the men's 4x400 relay won the program's first NCAA indoor title.

He has coached for Team USA three times: on staff at the 2003 Junior Pan American Games and the 2016 NACAC U23 Championships, and as head coach of the US men's team at the 2022 NACAC Championships. He started coaching in 1995 at North Carolina, his alma mater, and spent two seasons at Akron before South Carolina.

As a vaulter he was an All-American at North Carolina, fourth at the 1994 NCAA Championships, scored in five events at the ACC Championships and qualified for the 1996 and 2000 Olympic Trials with a best of 18 feet 6 inches. He co-teaches Hurdling Smarter with Karim and teaches Pole Vault: Start Here for beginners.

John Newell is the associate head coach for throws at Kansas State, a job he has held since 2024. His throwers have included five Olympians: Travis Bailey and Steven Mozia at Rio 2016, Stamatia Scarvelis at Tokyo 2020, and Veronica Fraley and Rojé Stona at Paris 2024, where Stona won the discus gold. Newell coached Stona at Arkansas in 2022 and 2023.

At Vanderbilt in 2024 he coached Fraley to the NCAA discus title with a school record of 63.66m and SEC Field Athlete of the Year honors. Across Michigan State, Tennessee, Arkansas, Vanderbilt and Kansas State he has coached 41 first-team All-Americans and 23 conference champions, and he was on the Arkansas staff for the men's 2023 NCAA indoor team title.

A six-time NCAA qualifier and All-American in the shot put, hammer and discus at Georgia, he teaches Smarter Shot Put.

Brian Bedard has been Colorado State's head track and field coach since the 2006-07 season and has coached the Rams' throwers since 1988, the year he finished competing for CSU himself. Under him Mya Lesnar won the 2024 NCAA indoor and 2025 NCAA outdoor shot put titles, and Mostafa Hassan won the NCAA indoor shot put in 2017 and 2018. As an assistant he coached Casey Malone to the 1998 NCAA discus title and Loree Smith to the 2005 NCAA hammer title, and both went on to the Olympics.

His teams have won more than 25 Mountain West championships. He has been named Mountain West Coach of the Year 22 times and USTFCCCA regional coach of the year nine times, and CSU athletes have earned 92 All-America honors and 223 Mountain West individual titles during his time on staff. He teaches the discus in Throwing Smarter, Throwing Farther.

Kara Winger threw the American javelin record of 68.11m in Brussels on September 2, 2022, in the final season of her career, and won the Diamond League final in Zurich six days later. That summer she took silver at the World Championships in Eugene with a final-round throw, the first World Championships medal for an American woman in the javelin.

She competed at four Olympic Games, from Beijing 2008 to Tokyo 2020, and at six World Championships, and won US titles across three Olympic cycles. Her career included two ACL tears, the second in 2020, and a comeback in 2024 that ended with second place at the Olympic Trials.

A Purdue graduate, she teaches the javelin in Smarter Javelin Throw.

Peter Smith is Director of Tennis at the Jack Kramer Club in Rolling Hills Estates, California. He was USC's head men's tennis coach from 2002 to 2019, winning five NCAA team championships (2009 to 2012 and 2014) with a 381-105 record, and was named Pac-12 Coach of the Year five times and ITA National Coach of the Year twice.

He became the youngest Division I men's head coach in the country when Long Beach State hired him in 1988, at 23, and coached Steve Johnson to two NCAA singles titles at USC. He was inducted into the ITA Men's Collegiate Tennis Hall of Fame in 2023. He teaches The Point of the Game.

Ryan Reisbeck won the Senior Division at the 2023 World Long Drive Championship and was runner-up in 2025. A former college pitcher at Utah, he didn't take up long drive until 2010, in his thirties, and hit a 485-yard competition drive in 2017.

He competes on the World Long Drive tour as a Callaway team member and co-teaches Driving Smarter, Driving Farther with his coach, Bobby Peterson.

Bobby Peterson owns the One Stop Power Shop in Newton Grove, North Carolina, and coaches long drive's best, including Kyle Berkshire, world champion in 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2023. He began training Bryson DeChambeau for long drive in 2021 and coached Ryan Reisbeck for years before the two made this course together.

He has competed in long drive since 1992 and has captained Team USA. He co-teaches Driving Smarter, Driving Farther.

Paul Weir is president of St. Michael's High School in Santa Fe, a post he took in 2026 after 17 years coaching in NCAA Division I. He was head coach at New Mexico State, going 28-6 with an NCAA tournament berth in 2017, then at New Mexico from 2017 to 2021, the first coach to lead both of the state's Division I programs.

He coached Canada to bronze at the 2021 FIBA U19 World Cup, holds a doctorate in educational leadership, and later served as athletic director at Eastern New Mexico and chief revenue officer at Abilene Christian. He teaches Coaching Basketball: The Hidden Curriculum.