Nike has hired BYU’s Diljeet Taylor to coach one of its new distance running clubs, the company announced Friday.
Taylor is the head coach of BYU’s women’s cross-country team and the associate track and field director.
She will now also be the head coach for Nike’s Swoosh TC club in Provo, Utah.
Will Diljeet Taylor stay at BYU?
Taylor will continue coaching in her roles at BYU, Citius Mag reported.
She has been at BYU since 2016 and was promoted to head women’s cross-country coach in 2021.
Taylor coached the BYU women to another Big 12 title and national championship this past cross-country season.
Taylor’s collegiate and professional runners made headlines last weekend at the John Thomas Terrier Classic in Boston taking both first and second place in the 5000-meter.
A total of five of her runners made the top 10 in that event.
What professional runners work with Diljeet Taylor?
Taylor has already been working as a professional coach, including for some of her former BYU runners, like Courtney Wayment, Whittni Morgan and Anna Camp-Bennett.
Wayment and Morgan were her first Olympians. They both competed in the 2024 Paris Olympics.
This season, former Cougar Sadie Sargent Mitchell has joined the squad.
Former Nike Union Athletics Club runners Ella Donaghu and Simone Plourde have also joined Taylor’s team.
Wayment, Morgan and Camp-Bennett are not Nike athletes but will be allowed to continue to be coached by Taylor until their contracts end.
But “they will not have access to the Swoosh TC network of resources,” per Citius Mag.
What is Nike’s Swoosh TC?
Swoosh TC is one of a group of clubs that comprise “a network of elite distance runners, coaches and innovators working together to push the boundaries of performance and progress at the leading edge of sport,” per Nike.
Clubs were also announced in Oregon and Arizona. Those clubs will be coached by Jerry Schumacher and Mike Smith, respectively.
“Our aspiration is to be the most dynamic, collaborative and competitive professional run club,” Taylor said in a statement with Nike. “We’re doing that through working as a collective to fulfill athletes’ dreams, helping them unleash their potential and creating a community where they can be successful. Having increased access to all three hubs will help athletes to push the boundaries of performance, giving them opportunities to train both at altitude and sea level.”
Taylor has a history with Nike. She is a member of the first coaches cohort of Nike’s Athlete Think Tank alongside coaches Dawn Staley, Emma Hayes and Jenny Lang Ping, as the Deseret News previously reported.