"My experience as an athlete under Coach Phipps was unfortunately very disappointing. Communication was a consistent issue, emails and texts often went unanswered, and follow-through on commitments was lacking. While he expressed that he cared about his athletes, his actions frequently suggested otherwise. Coach Phipps exercises a high degree of control over the program, often to the point of micromanagement, leaving little to no autonomy for assistant coaches. When approached with difficult questions or concerns, he would often avoid direct engagement, which made it challenging to resolve important issues. There was also a noticeable disparity in how athletes were treated; favoritism was evident, and those who were not top performers received minimal attention or support. This is particularly unfortunate given that the rest of the coaching and support staff are exceptional. It’s a shame that their efforts are overshadowed by the program's leadership dynamics. I would advise prospective athletes to carefully consider whether this environment aligns with their goals and values. "

"While presenting organized and caring, this coach does not prioritize you as an individual at all. I truly believe his actions are solely based on what is best for him. From special treatment to certain athletes (who are not even always the best athletes) to never responding to your texts or calls, this coach is a horrible communicator. He will purposefully avoid you when there are questions or topics that need to be discussed. I feel bad for his staff and can see that they are constantly frustrated with his lack of communication. It is unfortunate that this program has lots of talent, but the director of the program is a limiting factor to their success. "

"No this coach does not believe in you. He is not understanding, not a good leader, does not develop promote or encourage a team bond, and overall does not care. Do not run for wsu xc as a woman. You will be disappointed."

"I have tried to repress my memories from my experiences here as they have ruined me mentally and physically. But I believe this deserves to be heard. Wayne Phipps does not care about his athletes. He does care about anything but a paycheck. He ran me into the ground for my whole career and now I have permanent medical issues that I am dealing with as a result. Wayne does not know how to coach women. He would overtrain all us with no explanation. We all had the exact same workouts regardless of our individual needs and would give us all the exact same coaching advice. The only difference was our mileage. Now the men? They would get individualized advice. I worked so hard, put in extra hours in the training room, worked with the strength and conditioning coach on my own time, and I never got anything in return. I began having medical episodes while I was on the team, sometimes in races, and both my coaches got mad at me and blamed me for them and cut me from the travel team. These episodes were worsened by the rampant over training. We only had one easy run a week. The rest of the week was tempo, speed work, long run (expected to be progressive) mid week progressive long run, and easy run with speed intervals after. Sometimes we did 2 hard workouts a day and we were all completely destroyed. I went to his office and asked him to write me different workouts because the workouts in high school made me faster than his did. He said this wasn’t high school anymore and that I had to deal with it. Yup. That’s a great coach. You cannot train women in this manner. This is why were all super overtrained and every single one of us was injured. Not to mention we had over 20 hours of practice a week, he would change our practice locations and times at the last minute all the time, he ignored you if you weren’t fast even though it was his fault. He would also force us to request activities on our days off, basically making us go to things that were supposed to be optional according to the NCAA. We filled official complaints with the head of athletics and they did nothing. He needs to be fired and he needs to go. I will not get into the more traumatizing experiences I had including being left behind on one of our meet ups but I will forever be trying to forget what I experienced here. Above are the basic details that anyone should know. Do what you will with that information."

"If I could put a 0 star for honesty I would. As a former student athlete of his he will lie to young kids faces as long as it benefits his paycheck and tenure. Micromanager who is way too old timey and out of touch with his athletes. Also inherited a fantastic hurdle program and has gone nowhere but slowly downhill with his tenure. The best thing I can say is he’s genuinely invested in what he does, however that’s far overridden by his lack of updated knowledge, and more so by his tendencies to micro manage staff to the point of leaving."