The UCLA track & field and cross country program will be under new leadership in 2024-25, as Director of Track & Field and Cross Country Avery Anderson has announced that he is retiring from coaching.
I’d like to thank Dan Guerrero for providing me with the opportunity to return to my alma mater, and to Martin Jarmond for his support over these past four years,” Anderson said. “I love this university, and I’ve been honored to lead these talented young men and women here in Westwood. I have been extremely blessed to have this chapter in my life, but I’ve chosen to retire from coaching. I’ve poured my heart and soul into UCLA’s track and field and cross country programs, and I would sincerely like to thank all of our hard-working student-athletes for their trust in me. I’ll always be a Bruin, and I’m forever grateful for my time here.”
Anderson returned to his alma mater as the Sherie L. and Donald G. Morrison UCLA Track & Field/Cross Country Head Coach in the summer of 2017. During Anderson’s time leading the track & field and cross country program, UCLA produced five men’s Pac-12 individual champions and seven women’s Pac-12 event champions. More recently, Federica Botter was the back-to-back Pac-12 Champion in the women’s javelin in 2023 and 2024. Anderson was honored as the 2019 Pac-12 Men’s Track & Field Coach of the Year.
“We are grateful for Avery’s hard work and dedication to our track & field and cross country program over the past seven seasons,” said Martin Jarmond, UCLA’s Alice and Nahum Lainer Family Director of Athletics. “I would like to thank Avery for his commitment and service to his alma mater. In particular, he helped our track & field and cross country program navigate challenging circumstances during the COVID-19 pandemic. He will always be a Bruin and we wish him and his family the very best in the future.”
UCLA’s men’s 4x400m relay team placed third in the nation at the 2023 NCAA Division I outdoor national championships, running two sub-three-minute relays in consecutive races to place on the podium. The Bruins recorded two wins over the USC men’s program in the dual meet (in 2019 and 2023).
In 2021, the Bruin women set the outdoor school record in the women’s 4x400m relay, which still stands today (3:25.01), to capture third place at the NCAA national meet. In addition, the 2021 UCLA women notched the No. 12 national ranking on the USTFCCCA poll, the program’s highest ranking since 2014.
This season, the women’s program finished third at the Pac-12 Championship, while the men’s program finished fifth. During Anderson’s time as the program’s director, UCLA’s best Pac-12 finishes took place in 2019 in the men’s program (second, with 140 points) and in 2024 in the women’s program (third, with 99 points).
As a student-athlete at UCLA in the early 1990s, Anderson competed in both football and track & field. He was a member of the NCAA runner-up 4x100 relay team as a senior and helped the UCLA track & field team win four Pac-10 Championships. As a wide receiver for the football program from 1991-95, he played in the 1994 Rose Bowl after leading the Bruins to the 1993 Pac-10 title.
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