After nearly 30 years at the helm of one of the country’s most prominent distance running programs, Mark Wetmore’s contract will not be renewed by the University of Colorado when his current contract expires at the end of this month.
Associate head coach Heather Burroughs will also not be continuing her employment within the athletic department. Recruiting coordinator and assistant coach Shaun Wicen is also out, according to an email sent to athletes on the CU cross country and track teams.
Colorado released a statement from athletic director Rick George, which read, in part:
“In over 30 years, Mark Wetmore has built one of the country’s premier cross country programs and is an institution within the cross country and track & field communities. At this point, however, I felt it was time for a new era of leadership for our programs. I wish Mark the best and thank him for his longtime service to CU Athletics.”
The statement said a nationwide search for a new head coach will begin immediately.
The announcement comes less than a year after the school released the results of an independent review into practices associated with the program. The investigation, launched after 14 athletes submitted complaints, was conducted by two staff members of the University of Colorado Audit Department and an outside attorney.
Their report—based on interviews with nearly 50 former and current team members, plus a dozen staff members—found that the program’s use of body composition analysis “negatively impacted a significant number of student athletes” and that for many members of the women’s team the program “had an unhealthy environment.” Several medical staff members, in particular, said they’d expressed concerns about body composition testing and the resulting risk for low bone density, eating disorders, and other mental and physical health problems.
Before the broader investigation, the athletic department had also conducted an internal review involving 48 current student-athletes, the results of which prompted the university to enact new policies and take unspecified personnel actions.
The publicly available results—and additional reporting by Runner’s World—suggest athletes had drastically different experiences with Wetmore, Burroughs, and registered dietitian Laura Anderson, the former associate athletic director for performance nutrition. Anderson left the university on January 5.
Many high-profile alumni—including Olympians Kara Goucher and Jenny Simpson, who is also a volunteer assistant coach at the school—voiced support for Wetmore and Burroughs, saying they never experienced or witnessed harmful behaviors.
But others—including Lesley Higgins, who ran for CU from 1998–2002, and several more recent athletes, many of whom asked to remain anonymous for fear of backlash—reported being encouraged to maintain low body fat or match other athletes’ scores on body composition testing. Emails from Wetmore, Burroughs, and Anderson cited in the report make clear that the coaches frequently received and commented on athletes’ results.
Wetmore, who turns 71 on June 29, joined CU’s coaching staff in 1993 and was named head cross country and track and field coach on November 6, 1995. Burroughs, a three-time All-American at CU who graduated in 1999, joined the coaching staff in 2005. She and Wetmore are also a couple.
During Wetmore’s tenure, CU won eight national cross country team titles, with five athletes claiming individual titles. The track program has produced 21 individual NCAA titles since 2000, and in that same timeframe, 10 current or former athletes have earned spots on Olympic teams. That includes Val Constien, a CU grad and steeplechaser still coached by Wetmore and Burroughs as a professional, who went to Tokyo in 2021.
In recent years, the program has had more mixed results. Five individual athletes, along with a women’s 4 x 400 relay team, competed at the 2024 NCAA Division I Outdoor Track and Field Championships. Bailey Hertenstein ran 15:10.98 to place third in the 5,000 meters and Ella Baran ran a personal-best 15:28.43 to place seventh. (Hertenstein also competed in the event at the U.S. Olympic Track and Field Trials, finishing 13th in her first-round heat.)
Kole Mathison did not advance to the finals in the men’s 3,000-meter steeplechase, Abby Glynn placed eighth in the 400 meter hurdles, and Avery McMullen was 11th in the pentathlon. The women’s relay team did not advance to the finals.
Three athletes competed at the 2024 NCAA Division I Indoor Track and Field Championships: Ella Baran ran 15:38.72 to finish 12th in the 5,000 meters, Avery McMullen was eighth in the pentathlon, and Abbey Glynn did not advance to the finals in the 400 meters. And the women’s team placed 19th and the men 25th at the 2023 NCAA Cross Country Championships.
Several athletes have recently left the school, including freshman Karrie Baloga, a national cross-country champion in high school who transferred to Northern Arizona University after one semester. Others have left running altogether, including redshirt sophomore Hannah Miniutti, who stepped away Best Running Shoes 2025.
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Cindy is a freelance health and fitness writer, author, and podcaster who’s contributed regularly to Runner’s World since 2013. She’s the coauthor of both Breakthrough Women’s Running: Dream Big and Train Smart and Rebound: Train Your Mind to Bounce Back Stronger from Sports Injuries, a book about the psychology of sports injury from Bloomsbury Sport. Cindy specializes in covering injury prevention and recovery, everyday athletes accomplishing extraordinary things, and the active community in her beloved Chicago, where winter forges deep bonds between those brave enough to train through it.
