The nation’s top high school runner, Jane Hedengren, ran with her new college team for the first time this week — the defending national champion BYU Cougars — and somewhere along the route, she pulled ahead of the group.
“Jane had a little separation, and (afterwards) she said, ‘I just haven’t run with a team like this before,’” BYU women’s cross-country coach Diljeet Taylor told the “Y’s Guys” livestream show. “You know what my women said? ‘You doing your very best helps us do our very best. Don’t worry about where we are at.’
“How phenomenal is that for a group of women? ‘You do you. That’s going to help our team. We are right there with you,’ rather than have this envy or frustration that you have this freshman coming in — and that’s real on a team. But they have embraced it, celebrated it and I attribute that to the culture and the leaders on our team.”
Hedengren, the 2025 Deseret News Female Athlete of the Year, rewrote nine national running records while lacing up her shoes for Timpview High.
“What she accomplished in her senior year is once in a lifetime. It’s a generational talent. I say it’s a ‘Janerational’ talent,” Taylor laughed. “She is special. I am going to be very intentional about doing things the right way with her and that might look a little different than if she went somewhere else.
“We really want her to have a great senior year in college and a great pro career, and we are going to build those blocks a little slower and make sure the longevity is there.”
When the No. 1-ranked Cougars begin their national title defense on Friday at the Autumn Classic in Orem, Hedengren won’t be in uniform. Instead, Taylor will run her seven returners, including All-American Riley Chamberlain; however, by the Cowboy Jamboree on Sept. 26 in Stillwater, Oklahoma, Hedengren could be running front and center.
“We are going to have to find a place for her, and she is going to have to figure out what that looks like and feels like. It’s going to be very different from being on a high school team and it’s going to be different for our women as well,” Taylor said. “I want to be sensitive about making sure we do the very best we can for Jane while doing the very best we can for the team.”
The veteran coach is in her 10th season at BYU. Along the way, Taylor’s teams have won two national titles and two Big 12 titles, and twice she has been named national and Big 12 coach of the year. With Hedengren, Taylor knows she has a Maserati in the garage, but she will rely on experience and discipline to know when the time is right to bring it out, fire up the engine and hit the gas.
“I’m grateful that I have two decades of coaching under my belt, but I’m going to keep a promise (that I made) to myself and to her,” she said. “We are going to do this the right way. Yeah, it’s a challenge. I think I’m going to grow a lot as a coach over these next four to five years, and hopefully beyond that if she stays and runs as a professional with Nike here, but I’m gonna get better. I’m gonna get better as a coach. I’m going to learn a lot because I have never had an athlete quite like her in my history of coaching.”
The notebook
History was rediscovered this week during some Labor Day cleaning around the Taylor home in Provo. While filling up a dumpster with unwanted “junk,” the coach stumbled upon something she hadn’t seen for a while. It was the notebook she brought into her first job interview at BYU a decade ago.
“It had a one-year plan, a three-to-five-year plan and beyond. I almost got emotional reading what the hope was when I came here 10 years ago, and it was to inspire and empower women,” Taylor said. “It was to create a sisterhood. It was to set a really good team culture in Year 1, build on it in Year 2, and win in years 3 to 5, and we’ve done that. We’ve been nationally relevant for a decade now, and that’s been fun.”
For some, managing success can be as hard as achieving it, but Taylor is driven by balance.
“I kept my notebook. What else is so special about that, is oftentimes you get into coaching, and you have success, and you go away from the thing you started it with, and I’ve kept it the same — which made me proud in the moment.”
— BYU women's XC coach Diljeet Taylor
“Just be where my feet are and stay present,” she said. “Every year, it’s a new group of women. My women, even the returners, are not the same women as they were last year, and really focusing on the process, not getting wrapped up in the outcomes — which is super hard to do as a coach, because we do care about the outcome — but staying present in the process and reminding myself constantly that my purpose is to help great runners become great women and help great women become great runners, and if I’m doing that every single day, we are going to put together a good performance when it matters the most.”
Taylor tossed a lot of unwanted items into the dumpster this week, but not the notebook. That stays.
“I kept my notebook,” she said. “What else is so special about that, is oftentimes you get into coaching, and you have success, and you go away from the thing you started it with, and I’ve kept it the same — which made me proud in the moment.”
Title defense
Taylor’s Cougars are built to contend again, both nationally and in the Big 12, where BYU is the preseason favorite to pull off a three-peat. Along with Chamberlain, Taylor Lovell, Nelah Roberts, Jenna Hutchins and Taylor Rohatinsky are back from the championship squad.
“We have a good strong, returning class. They don’t feel this pressure. There isn’t this expectation,” she said. “Sometimes when you win the national championship or are ranked No. 1, you have that target on your back. My women are just focused on, ‘Let’s just be where our feet are and get better.’
“We do not want to be flashy in September. We want to be tired. I’ve got a lot of pieces. I just want to build and make sure they are building championship habits.”
In addition to her coaching jobs with BYU and Nike, Taylor is also Ed Eyestone’s associate director of track and field, and she was recently appointed as a senior associate athletic director with an emphasis on strategic planning.
“It’s the best time to be a coach at BYU. Look what is happening in our athletic department across the board,” Taylor said. “For us to coach, when you are really happy with what you get to do every single day and it’s a joy to show up for these women, the women feel that, and they want to show up for each other and for you.
“People are starting to notice the energy. That’s what is attractive about BYU is the confidence the women are exuding at all times. Win, lose or draw, the women are walking with a great amount of confidence and it’s contagious.”
Taylor’s top 5 foods every runner should have in their diet
- Protein smoothies: “It doesn’t matter how you mix them or what you add, but make sure you have a liquid protein you are consuming every day.”
- Redmond Re-Lyte: “It’s not a food, but add it to water and make sure that is in your daily hydration.”
- Bananas: “They are a great staple. You will see them at every road race.”
- Blueberries: “I love blueberries.”
- Chicken: “You can add so much more — fruits and vegetables, throw that in there also.”
Dave McCann is a sportswriter and columnist for the Deseret News and is a play-by-play announcer and show host for BYUtv/ESPN+. He co-hosts “Y’s Guys” at ysguys.com and is the author of the children’s book “C is for Cougar,” available at deseretbook.com.