Marshall University Athletics
Track and Field
- Title:
- Assistant Coach (Sprints/Hurdles/Jumps)
- Email:
- yentes@marshall.edu
- Phone:
- 2481
Don Yentes, a former head men's and women's coach at Wyoming, was named assistant coach in October of 2013.
With the Herd, he coaches sprinters, hurdlers and jumpers, and recruits with Small. Yentes arrived in 2013 after Marshall had two NCAA nationals top-six finishers and All-Americans in 2013 (outdoors) seniors Vanessa Jules and Crystal Walker. He said the program benefited from their performances and the indoor facility.
18 different events Yentes works with have seen broken school records since his arrival. He has also coached 18 All-Conference USA performances, including Safiyyah Mitchell, the all-time school leader in points at the Conference USA meet, having earned six All-C-USA honors.
He has coached seven athletes who have qualified eight times for the NCAA Regional Meet: Jasia Richardson (2014 Triple Jump), Isatu Fofanah (2015 100m), Antonique Butler (2016, 2017 Triple Jump), Denisha West (2018 Triple Jump), Christianna Dogan (2019 400m Hurdles), Safiyyah Mitchell (2019 100m Hurdles), Ashonti Warner (2019 400m Hurdles).
Richardson in the Triple Jump in 2014 is the most recent Marshall qualifier for the NCAA National Championships.
With Wyoming, Yentes coached 28 All-Americans, 66 Mountain West Conference champions and had 92 NCAA Nationals qualifiers. He was head coach there from 2000-12, after serving as a UW assistant for four years.
He was a four-time Mountain West Coach of the Year (twice for men, twice for women) and guided nine NCAA Division I All-Academic women's teams. Yentes also has been an assistant coach at Eastern Michigan and coached at three Kansas junior colleges.
Yentes, born in Covington, Ky., grew up in Greensburg, Ind., and ran cross country at Judson College in Elgin, Ill. His parents were Morehead State graduates and his father, Gerald, played baseball and basketball for MSU, and played hoops in the NCAA tournament in the late `50s.
Yentes and his wife, Sande, have two adult children, Morgan and Dylan.
