Track and Field
- Title:
- Associate Head Coach (Sprints, Hurdles, Relays)
- Email:
- curtist@uoregon.edu
- Phone:
- (541) 346-5512
Curtis Taylor is in his ninth season at Oregon overall, and sixth as an associate head coach leading the Ducks’ sprints and hurdles group. After an illustrious career developing world-class talent at the high school and junior college levels, Taylor joined the Oregon staff prior to the 2014 season. He was then promoted to associate head coach in March 2017 after helping lead the UO women to their seventh NCAA indoor title in an eight-year span.
Taylor is a three-time USTFCCCA National Assistant Coach of the Year, having first been honored after the 2016 outdoor season and then sweeping indoor and outdoor accolades in 2017. Individually, Taylor has coached Oregon athletes to eight individual NCAA titles, 26 individual Pac-12 titles and a handful of collegiate records.
Taylor is also an eight-time USTFCCCA West Region Assistant Coach of the Year with three indoor honors and five outdoor selections.
In nine season at Oregon, Taylor has been part of 10 NCAA team championships including the program’s most recent at the 2021 NCAA Indoor Championships for the UO men. During the 2016-17 season, the Women of Oregon made history as the first women’s Division I team to complete the Triple Crown in the same academic year.
Under Taylor’s watch, Micah Williams and Kemba Nelson won the men’s and women’s 60 meters at the 2021 NCAA Indoor Championships. Williams’ win was the first in program history while Nelson broke the collegiate record with her 7.05 performance in the final; that time now sits No. 2 all-time. With the wins, Oregon became the first school since LSU (2008) to sweep the NCAA titles at 60 meters.
Later that season, Nelson became the fifth UO woman to run sub-11 with a legal wind in the 100 meters when she recorded a 10.98 performance at the NCAA West Preliminary. Four of the five women on that list—Nelson, Jasmine Todd, Jenna Prandini and Hannah Cunliffe—were coached by Taylor. Nelson added wind-aided times of 10.90 (+2.2) and 10.91 (+2.1) that season.
Williams earned a spot on Team USA for the 2021 Olympics by way of his fifth-place and school-record performance of 9.91 in the finals at the U.S. Olympic Team Trials at Hayward Field. He went to Tokyo as a member of the 4x100-meter relay pool, and was joined in that pool by fellow Duck Cravon Gillespie.
In 2022, Williams lowered his own school records to 6.48 over 60 meters indoors and 9.86 in the 100 outdoors. He set an all-conditions best of 9.83 (+2.5) at the 2022 Mt. SAC Relays and broke the Pac-12 Championships meet record with a time of 9.93, eclipsing the previous mark of 9.97 shared by former UO standout Cravon Gillespie and Andre De Grasse (USC).
Nelson, a three-time 2022 Pac-12 champion, was the NCAA runner-up at 100 meters this past season, and was also part of the Ducks’ 4x100-meter relay that finished third at the NCAA Championships.
Overall, Taylor coached the Women of Oregon to seven NCAA outdoor qualifiers, and like Nelson the year before, saw a breakthrough during the indoor season from Jadyn Mays. The Arizona native finished third at the 2021 NCAA Indoor Championships at 60 meters, complete with a 7.09 performance in the semifinals.
Nelson went on to earn a silver medal at the World Athletics Championships Oregon22 as the lead-off leg for Team Jamaica in the 4x100-meter relay. She ran a school-record 10.88 to finish second over 100 meters at the Jamaican Championships.
For the second time under Taylor, the UO women won the 4x100-meter relay at the Pac-12 meet with their victory in 2021. The winning team of Nelson, Mays, Jasmin Reed and Danyel White became the fifth-fastest quartet in school history with a 42.86 in the semifinals at the NCAA Championships. The Ducks repeated as Pac-12 champions in the 4x100 at the 2022 conference meet held at Hayward Field.
In 2019, Gillespie was a three-time Pac-12 champion—100 meters, 200 meters, 4x100m—and earned Pac-12 Men’s Track Athlete of the Year accolades. In successfully defending his conference title in the 100 meters, he tied the meet record of 9.97 first set by Andre DeGrasses (USC) in 2015.
Under Taylor’s direction, the 4x100-meter relay team of Gillespie, Spenser Schmidt, Rieker Daniel and Oraine Palmer set the still-standing school record of 38.72 on its way to the 2019 conference title.
Gillespie went on to shine at the 2019 NCAA Championships with a pair of national runner-up efforts in the 100 and 200 meters. In a pair of top-10 collegiate performances, Gillespie posted times of 9.93 and 19.93, respectively. He remains the only Duck to dip below 20 seconds in the 200 meters.
Taylor also coached the Men of Oregon to back-to-back conference titles in the 110-meter hurdles with Braxton Canady (2018) and Eric Edwards Jr. (2019). The Ducks’ collection of 2018 conference titles also included Gillespie’s first win at 100 meters and Makenzie Dunmore in the women’s 200 meters.
Taylor’s charges accounted for 51 of the Ducks’ meet-record 84 points at the 2017 NCAA Indoor meet, securing part two of the eventual Triple Crown. Three of his student-athletes brought home individual national titles: Cunliffe (60m), Ariana Washington (200m) and Sasha Wallace (60mH). Washington and Cunliffe also finished 1-2 in the 200-meter final, a feat last accomplished in 2010 by Auburn.
At that year’s NCAA Outdoor Championships, the UO sprints and hurdles crew scored an impressive 39 points to aid in the Women of Oregon’s completion of the Triple Crown. Taylor saw two of his athletes secure NCAA runner-up finishes with Deajah Stevens (100m) and Washington (200m). Stevens went on to win the 2017 U.S. title at 200 meters.
The 2017 season also saw several collegiate and school records fall under Taylor. Cunliffe ran 7.07 to set the collegiate indoor record at 60 meters—a mark later broken by Nelson. The relays also thrived under Taylor’s tutelage with the Women of Oregon collecting NCAA records in 4x100, 4x200 and sprint-medley relays. Stevens also ran the then-No. 2 time in collegiate history at 200 meters (22.09).
Having set a collegiate record earlier in the 2017 season, the quartet of Cunliffe, Stevens, Washington and Makenzie Dunmore lowered that mark to 42.12 (now No. 2 all-time) at the 2017 Mt. SAC Relays. The same team ran an NCAA-record time in the 4x200-meter relay of 1:28.78 at the 2017 Florida Relays.
On the men’s side, Taylor set school records that same season in the 60 meters, 100 meters and outdoor 200 meters, and with the 4x100-meter relay. For that respective efforts, King and Stevens earned 2017 Pac-12 Track Athlete of the Year honors.
Taylor has mentored a number of high-profile athletes at Oregon. Prandini, the 2015 NCAA champion at 100 meters and runner-up in the 200, became the highest individual NCAA point scorer for a single year with 49 points between the indoor and outdoor championships. Prandini went on to win The Bowerman in 2015, becoming the second-consecutive UO woman (Laura Roesler, 2014) to win the award.
Prandini and Todd continued their stellar 2015 seasons at that summer’s USA Championships. Prandini won the U.S. title in the 200 meters and Todd qualified for the World Championships in two events: 100 meters and long jump. At the 2015 World Championships in Beijing, the pair joined former UO standout English Gardner as part of the 4x100 relay that won a silver medal.
Taylor came to Oregon from Laney College in Oakland, Calif., where he spent eight years as head coach of the women’s track and field team.
Taylor took a program that finished 23rd at the 2006 California Community College State Track and Field Championships before his arrival and immediately helped them compete for state titles. By his second year at Laney, the team won the Nor Cal Regional Championship and finished second at the state meet, earning Taylor the title of California State Junior College Coach of the Year. The honor was followed by being named the Nor Cal Region Women’s Coach of the Year both in 2007 and 2008.
The level of competition at Laney was maintained throughout Taylor’s tenure as the Eagles finished in the top three in the state during five of his seven years at the helm. In 2010, Taylor guided Laney to its first California State Junior College Championship and duplicated the effort in 2012.
Prior to his time at Laney College, Taylor had two-year stops at Merritt College as the Head Women’s Track and Field coach and at City College of San Francisco where he was an assistant coach for sprints, hurdles and jumps.
Outside of the collegiate scene, Taylor served as a camp clinician at the USATF Junior Women’s Elite Sprint/Hurdles Camp and was a USATF Western Region Junior Women’s Sprint Coordinator. He was also the Track and Field Coach at the East Oakland Youth Development Program for 17 years, a community-based organization that has produced numerous youth national champions.
Taylor began his coaching career at the interscholastic level in 1988 at Bishop O’Dowd High School in Oakland as an assistant coach before becoming head coach at Skyline High School, also in Oakland, for six years.
