David Granato enters his seventh season as the Head Cross Country Coach and distance coach for the track & field teams.
The Washburn men's cross country team wrapped up the 2024 cross country season with a program-best 24th-place finish at the NCAA Championships on Saturday at Haggin Oaks Golf Complex. Donald Kibet earned his second All-American award in cross country as an Ichabod after leading the team with a 35th-place individual finish in a time of 30:27.8.
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 recording finishing of 22nd and 29th respectively for the highest individual showings. 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 new level as the squad finished a program-best fifth at the NCAA Central Regional meet sending 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 with the highest-grade point average of the 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 USTFCCA Program of the Year after scoring in all NCAA three championships.
Overall, the 2022-23 men's and women's cross country teams and indoor and outdoor track and field distance runners set a total of the 10 individual times in program history.
The 2022 cross country season was a stellar year for Washburn’s distance program. New school records were set on both the men’s and women’s side in cross country, as well as a total of six of the top 10 all-time marks on each side. In the classroom, the men’s team recorded the third-best GPA of any men’s cross country team in Div 2, with a 3.65 GPA, while the Women posted a team GPA of 3.71.
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. The Women have improved their regional finish from 20th to 12th, and the Men have improved their regional finish from 23rd to 5th.
Granato has coached 15 school records at Washburn including 93 top ten all-time marks, the first European U20 Championships qualifier in a distance event, the first European U20 Championships qualifier in cross country, and a 1, 2 finish in the college division of the 5000m at the Drake relays.
Between cross country and track and field Granato has coached 20 all-MIAA selections, three individual NCAA National Championship qualifiers, five all-region selections and in the class room, 36 MIAA Academic Excellence Award winners, 13 MIAA Scholar Athletes and 141 members of the MIAA Academic Honor Roll and 75 USTFCCCA Academic Scholars.
He 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 team titles in the process.
On the men’s side, the team improved to one of the strongest in a storied history; winning four team national 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 has 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 recover stress state analysis as indicators of over training syndrome in national caliber male and female Division II cross country runners.
