David Granato enters his seventh season as the Head Cross Country Coach and distance coach for the track & field teams.
In the 2025 cross country season, the Ichabod men and women's team both reached new heights with the men's squad finishing second at the NCAA Central Regional Championship and 22nd at the NCAA National Championship - both program bests. The women's squad placed a program-best ninth at the NCAA Regional sending one runner as an individual to the NCAA Championships.
During the 2024 cross country season, Granato helped the Ichabod men's squad to its best finish at the national championships finishing 26th as Donald Kibet picked up All-American honors with a 35th-place finish.
In 2024, the Men’s 10,000m Event Squad was nationally ranked as high as 6th in DII, as well as nationally ranked 5000m and 1500m Event Squads.
The 2023 season brought the Ichabod men's cross country team to new heights, as they finished a program-best fourth at the NCAA Central Regional sending two individuals to the National Championships where David Kibet and Donald Kibet each earned All-American honors, finishing 22nd and 29th respectively for the two best individual finishes in program history. The Ichabod men's team also finished a program-best second at the MIAA Cross Country Championships scoring a total of 82 points as David Kibet won the individual championship.
In 2022, Granato led the Ichabod men's cross country to a new level as the squad finished a (at the time) program-best fifth at the NCAA Central Regional meet, qualifying the team to the NCAA Championship meet for the first time in school history, finishing 26th overall. The men's team was also honored at the NCAA Championships for achieving the highest-grade point average of all men's teams competing in Seattle.
Along with the 2022-23 Ichabod men's indoor and outdoor track and field teams, the Washburn program was honored as a USTFCCCA Program of the Year after scoring in all three NCAA championships.
Overall, the Men's and Women's cross country teams and distance runners in indoor and outdoor track and field have had a total of four First Team All-Americans, five MIAA Individual Champions, and 43 School Records.
In 2021, the women’s 5000m event squad was nationally ranked for the first time in program history, as high as 10th in Div II, with two athletes finishing 1, 2 in the college division of the 5000m at the Drake relays.
Prior to Washburn, Granato served the previous five seasons at perennial power Adams State where he helped rebuild the women’s team to one of the best in NCAA Division II, improving from an average national team place of tenth in the 2014-15 academic year, to an average national team placing of second, earning Program of the Year awards for 2017 and 2018. The women’s team also broke eight school records, one Division II record, and won four NCAA team titles in the process.
On the men’s side, the Adams State team improved to one of the strongest in a storied history; winning four NCAA team titles, scoring 44 points to win the 2017 cross country national championship, in addition to breaking eight school records, three Division II records, and winning three program of the year awards.
Combined, Granato helped the program to eight NCAA Division II team titles, and 12 additional podium finishes. He has coached 31 individual NCAA Champions, one European U23 silver medalist, 120 All-Americans and 77 Academic Scholar All-Americans
Granato earned his master’s degree in exercise physiology from Adams State where he completed his thesis on salivary cortisol levels and recovery stress state analysis as indicators of over training syndrome in national caliber male and female Division II cross country runners.
