James Thomas - Head Coach - Cross Country Coaches

James Thomas

Title:
Head Coach
Email:
coach.thomas@ou.edu

University of Oklahoma Vice President and Director of Athletics Joe Castiglione announced the hiring of James Thomas as head track and field/cross country coach Nov. 29, 2023. In his first inaugural season, Thomas directed the program to three school records, one Olympian, two individual conference titles, 15 All-America honors, 47 all-conference awards and 59 top-ten performances in OU history. Thomas’ commitment to academic excellence aided his student-athletes to 20 4.0 GPAs, 47 3.50+ GPAs and 16 graduates during the 2023-24 year.

Career Coaching Numbers:
9 NCAA National Champions
9 Olympians
31 National Team Members
138 NCAA Division I All-Americans
11-time USTFCCCA Regional Assistant Coach of the Year
1 NCAA National Team Championship (2019)
6 Conference Team Championships
9 Top-5 NCAA Team Finishes
45 Individual Conference Champions
2 Collegiate Records
8 NCAA All-Time Top 10 Performances
61 School Records
13 USTFCCCA Region Athletes of the Year Honorees
2 Bowerman Award Finalists

Thomas served as the primary coach for the high jump group during the 2024 track and field season where freshman Kyren Washington claimed sixth place and First Team All-American honors at the NCAA Outdoor Championships. Washington posted the third-best jump in OU outdoor history, 2.20m (7-2.50), and the fifth-best jump in indoor history at 2.18m (7-1.75). Thomas guided the freshman to two All-Conference honors, including a sixth-place finish at the Big 12 Indoor Championship and fourth place at the outdoor championship.

Over the summer, Thomas worked with student-athletes participating in national and international competitions in preparation for the 2024 Paris Olympics. While attending the Jamaican National Trials, he aided senior Ralford Mullings to an Olympic-qualifying mark and a school record in the discus. Mullings would go on to finish ninth in Paris, becoming the first Oklahoma male to ever qualify and compete in the discus at an Olympic event. Also at the Jamaican trials, senior Nikaoli Williams finished fifth in the long jump with a 25-11 (7.90m) mark. In the U.S., Thomas coached Kyren Washington to third place and teammate Tyson Ritz to fifth place in the high jump at the 2024 USATF U20 Championships. At the U.S. Olympic Team Trials, Thomas supported five current student-athletes: Paige Low, BJ Green, Olivia Lueking, Kassidy Gallagher and Brendon See as they competed for a chance to represent USATF at the Olympics.

Thomas has coached in a variety of capacities on the international stage, also earning USTFCCCA certifications in the following areas:

2023 NACAC U23 Head Men’s Coach (USA)
2022 Indoor World Championships Team Coach (USA)
2019 The Match “USA vs Europe” Team Coach (USA)
USTFCCCA Jumping Event Specialist Instructor
USTFCCCA Master Instructor & Curriculum Developer

Thomas, who has strong ties to the state of Texas and the southeast, joined OU after serving the 2021-22 and 2022-23 seasons as a highly accomplished assistant on the University of Georgia track and field staff. Hired in June 2021 as UGA's assistant coach for jumps and combined events, he was promoted to associate head coach in summer 2022 and helped lead the Bulldogs to top-10 finishes at the 2023 NCAA Outdoor Championships (the men finished seventh and the women 10th) and top-five showings at the 2023 NCAA Indoor Championships (the men finished second and the women fifth).

In 2022, Georgia's men finished eighth at the NCAA Indoor Championships and fifth at the outdoor championships, the same season he was named U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) Regional Assistant Coach of the Year.

No stranger to the southwest region, Thomas also spent nine seasons (2013-21) as associate head coach on the Texas Tech track and field staff, helping create and sustain one of the most dominant men's and women's jumps and combined events programs in the country. A 10-time USTFCCCA Regional Assistant Coach of the Year with the Red Raiders, he was key to the Texas Tech men's team winning the 2019 NCAA Outdoor Championships. He also helped Tech to six Big 12 Conference team titles and coached eight individual NCAA champions. His Red Raider athletes amassed 86 NCAA All-America honors, won 28 Big 12 individual titles and established school records in 14 of the 16 events he coached.

Thomas' SEC experience isn't limited to Georgia. He was hired as assistant coach at Kentucky in the summer of 2006 and spent six seasons in Lexington, completely transforming UK's jumps and combined events programs. He coached Wildcat athletes to 14 All-America honors, three individual SEC titles and 74 entries on the school's all-time top-10 performance lists.

Thomas, who served as head men's coach of the USA's 2023 North American, Central American and Caribbean Athletics Association (NACAC) Under-23 Championships team, was instrumental in Georgia's success in jumps and multi-events the last two years. During the 2022 indoor season, his star pupil, Kyle Garland, captured the SEC heptathlon crown with 6,205 points to become the No. 5 all-time collegiate performer and moved to No. 2 in the school record book. He scored 6,200 points a second time for runner-up honors at nationals. Garland entered the 2022 outdoor season with a personal-best 8,196 points in the decathlon, but obliterated the collegiate record in the event with 8,720 points at the USATF Championships to become the No. 8 all-time American performer. Garland finished third at the championships and qualified for the World Athletics Championships. He also posted a third-place decathlon finish at the 2022 NCAA Outdoor Championships with an 8,333 tally. Teammate Johannes Erm won his first SEC decathlon title while Garland was recovering from the USATF meet. Erm and Garland went on to compete at Worlds with Erm finishing ninth (8,227 points) for his native Estonia and Garland taking 11th (8,133) for USA.

In 2023, Garland set the collegiate heptathlon record with a facility-best total of 6,639 points in Albuquerque, N.M., to win the NCAA indoor title and move to No. 2 on the world's all-time performance list (only six points shy of the world record). That was after Garland scored 6,415 points to win the Texas Tech Multis and earn the No. 4 spot on the all-time collegiate performance list. He then finished as the national runner-up in the decathlon with 8,630 points at the 2023 NCAA Outdoor Championships. Garland, who owns three of the top four decathlon performances in NCAA history, was named the 2023 USTFCCCA National and South Region Men's Field Athlete of the Year for his efforts, and was one of three finalists for The Bowerman, the award given annually to the NCAA's most outstanding male and female track and field athletes.

Thomas' jumpers also hit exceptional levels during his first season guiding them. Sixth-year senior Darius Carbin tied a 37-year-old school record with a 2.30m/7-6.50 high-jump clearance (tied for the NCAA's top mark in 2022) at Georgia's home meet before collecting the first SEC title of his career. Carbin went on to post the top finish for a Bulldog men's high jumper in history at the NCAA meet, taking second (2.24m/7-4.25), and qualified for Worlds after finishing fourth at the USATF Championships.

The Lady Bulldogs also thrived in 2022 under Thomas' tutelage with a pair of first-team All-America certificates. First-year high jumper Elena Kulichenko was the SEC Freshman Field Athlete of the Year in both the indoor and outdoor seasons. She finished fourth at both conference meets and eighth at the NCAA Indoor Championships.

In the horizontal jumps, Thomas continued to develop Titiana Marsh, as she scored in the triple and long jumps at both the SEC indoor and outdoor meets. Marsh earned bronze medal honors in the triple at the SEC Outdoor Championships with a season-best 13.60m/44-7.50 before battling for fifth at nationals (13.55m/44-5.50). She advanced to the NCAA Indoor Championships again in both the long and triple jumps and registered a pair of fourth-place finishes at the SEC meet.

In 2023, the Georgia women finished fifth and 10th in the NCAA Indoor and Outdoor Championships, respectively, after finishing 46th and 45th in 2022. Kulichenko earned bronze at the NCAA indoors and outdoors and went on to qualify for the finals of the World Championships.

Thomas, a native of Katy, Texas, graduated from Sam Houston State University in 2003 with a degree in kinesiology and earned a master's degree from Texas A&M University-Commerce in 2014 in health and human performance-athletic administration. Thomas was a 10-time USTFCCCA Mountain Region Assistant of the Year while with the Red Raiders.

In 2021, he led junior Ruth Usoro to sweep the NCAA indoor and outdoor triple jump championships and also score in both long jumps nationally while also having another pair of scoring All-Americans in the jumps.

Thomas joined Texas Tech in 2012 and redefined success as the head of the men's and women's jumps and combined events groups. He was the catalyst to some of the most significant student-athlete development and achievements Texas Tech and the NCAA had ever seen. In fact, Thomas' athletes registered nearly every top-10 performance in school history.

In addition to the 2019 NCAA outdoor title, Thomas helped lead the Texas Tech men that season to a fourth straight Big 12 championship, 11 NCAA All-America honors and four individual Big 12 champions. While the men were hoisting the team title, Tech's Zarriea Willis completed an indoor/outdoor sweep in the NCAA women's high jump.

Thomas' success at Texas Tech went well beyond 2019. In total, he helped lead the Red Raiders to four NCAA top-five team finishes. Many of his student-earned the opportunity to travel the world and compete at multiple international championships.

Prior to Kentucky, Thomas spent the 2005 and '06 track seasons at TCU as an assistant coach. He started his coaching career at Sam Houston State in the summer of 2003, serving as an assistant coach for a year and a half.

James is married to Ebony Thomas, and they have two sons, Jordan and Jameson.