Kurtis Brondyke - Track and Field Coach

Kurtis Brondyke

Title:
Associate Head Coach
Email:
kurtisb@iastate.edu

Kurtis Brondyke closed his fifth season at Iowa State, and second as associate head coach in 2025 following his promotion in December of 2024. Brondyke is responsible for coaching sprinters, hurdlers, jumpers and multi-event student-athletes. One of America’s top decathletes for over a decade, Brondyke came to Iowa State after seven seasons as an assistant coach at Central Missouri.

Brondyke’s group has brought in a national title, 14 All-America honors and five Big 12 titles.

Brondyke's ability to develop athletes is evident, as he has taken 400m star Rachel Joseph to new heights. Joseph came to Iowa State with a PR of 53.42, while the now eight-time All-American holds the ISU record of 50.08, one of seven of her school records. Joseph closed a legendary collegiate career becoming the sixth ISU woman or man to earn eight All-America honors, while earning four Big 12 titles. Joseph also earned Iowa State Female AOTY (2024-25) and USTFCCCA Regional Women’s Track Indoor and Outdoor (2025).

Showing progression season-to-season, Brondyke’s group went out to a historic season in 2024. Sydney Willits put on a show earning the NCAA indoor long jump title, Iowa State’s first national champion in the event. The junior took down the indoor long jump and pentathlon school records and earned indoor and outdoor long jump All-America honors. Willits went on to be named USTFCCCA Regional Women’s Field Indoor AOTY and the Iowa State Female AOTY. Willits closed her Cyclone career in 2026 making her fourth appearance in the long jump at NCAA Championships.

Willits along with Joseph qualified for U.S. Olympic Trials in 2024. Willits moved onto the long jump final while Joseph, a sophomore, came up on spot short of advancing to the 400m final after hitting the Olympic Standard in both the first round (50.92) and semifinals (50.74).

Brondyke’s first season with Iowa State saw him begin to make his imprint on event groups that will continue to make a bigger impact on the Cyclone program in the coming years. The women’s hurdlers were strong in 2022, with Kaylyn Hall qualifying for NCAA West Prelims in the 100 and 400m hurdles before taking the silver medal in the 100m hurdles at the 2022 Canadian Championships and Katarina Vlahovic taking down Iowa State’s school record in the 60m hurdles indoors.

In 2023, Willits shined in her sophomore season, earning All-America honors in the long jump in outdoor season while taking the indoor Big 12 long jump title. Showing her versatility, Willits put up four top 10 ISU program performances while medaling at outdoor Big 12s in the heptathlon and long jump. In total, Brondyke's athletes earned 15 All-Big 12 honors on the season.

After four seasons without any multi-event student-athletes, Brondyke had to build ISU’s mutli-event program from scratch, but found strong foundational pieces in 2022. Thai Thompson was sixth indoors in the heptathlon at the Big 12 Championships and broke 7,000 points in the decathlon at the Big 12 Championships, scoring 7,001 to finish ninth. On the women’s side, Willits showed growth in her first season as a multi-eventer, capping her season finishing eighth in the heptathlon at the Big 12 Championships with 5,038 points.

As a coach, Brondyke helped coach student-athletes to 25 All-America honors in the multi-events while being a member of the UCM coaching staff that helped the Mules and Jennies win a combined six MIAA Conference titles and the 2015 NCAA Division II Women’s Indoor and Outdoor National Championships. He helped coach three individuals to multi-event national titles, with Brent Vogel winning the Division II Men’s Indoor Heptathlon national title in 2013 and Erin Alewine winning consecutive Division II crowns in the indoor pentathlon in 2013 and 2014.

As an athlete, Brondyke concluded his competitive career at the U.S. Olympic Trials, competing at the USATF National Championships for a fifth time in his career. He finished in the top-10 four times, including a seventh-place finish in the 2019 Championships in Des Moines, just missing out on his personal best at 7,785. He owns a PR of 7,795 from 2016.

Brondyke has represented the United States three times at the Thorpe Cup, an annual multi-events competition between the USA and Germany, finishing fifth in 2016.

As a student-athlete at Central College in Pella, Brondyke was the 2011 Division III National Champion in the indoor pentathlon. A four-time All-American with the Dutch, Brondyke was second in the Division III decathlon in 2011.

Brondyke received his Bachelor’s Degree from Central College in 2012 and his Master’s Degree from Central Missouri in 2014. He is married to Iowa State assistant coach Alex Gochenour-Brondyke.