ABILENE – The US Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association announced Tuesday that ACU Sports Hall of Famer Wes Kittley will be inducted later this year into the USTFCCCA Coaches Hall of Fame.
Kittley won an NCAA record 29 national track and field championships as the men's and women's track and field coach. Kittley, who gave ACU 23 years of service as a student-athlete, assistant coach, head coach and administrator, was born in Rule, Texas, and attended Rule High School, where he was a state champion on the mile relay team.
Kittley won his first national championship in 1985 when his women won the Division II outdoor championship, a title he would win again from 1986-88. When ACU combined its track and field programs in 1993, Kittley was selected to head the men's and women's teams. He wasted no time taking a floundering men's program to an elite level, winning the Division II indoor title in his first season.
Aside from his coaching duties, Kittley had also assumed an administrative role at ACU. In 1996, he led the men's and women's teams to all four NCAA Division II track and field titles (both indoor and outdoor titles) as ACU became the first school at any level of NCAA competition to accomplish the feat. The Wildcats did it again in 1999.
In 1997 he added the additional duties of associate director of athletics to his resume.
His 15-year tenure at ACU included coaching 12 Olympic qualifiers, three Pan-American Games athletes, five World University Games athletes, 16 athletes who have qualified for the world championships and one United States national champion. As the women's coach, Kittley's teams won 15 straight Lone Star Conference titles and he was named LSC Coach of the Year 14 times.
During his tenure as the men's coach, Kittley's teams won six straight LSC titles and he was named Coach of the Year five times. He coached the women's team to 20 NCAA Division II titles and coached the men to nine national championships.
The Lone Star Conference renamed its award honoring the top female track athlete at the conference meet the "Wes Kittley Award." Kittley also coached the ACU women's volleyball team in 1987 and 1988, going a combined 30-20 in those two years.
Kittley was also an outstanding student-athlete while at ACU, earning NAIA all-America honors three times and being named captain in 1981 of ACU's Lone Star Conference championship team.
