Doug Fraley - Men's Track and Field Coach - University of Montana Athletics

Doug Fraley

Title:
Head Coach
Email:
douglas.fraley@mso.umt.edu
Phone:
243-4657

Doug Fraley enters his fifth season as Montana’s head track & field and cross country coach in 2026-27. In addition to overseeing the entire programs, Fraley specializes in the Grizzlies’ sprint group.

Fraley’s time in Missoula has taken the Grizzly track & field program to new heights as the team has improved year-over-year to become a top team in the Big Sky Conference. In the last two seasons, Montana has finished in the top three in the Big Sky indoors and outdoors on the men’s side and has three 3^rd-place finishes and a 4^th place finish on the women’s side.

The Grizzlies scored 218.5 points at the 2026 Big Sky Outdoor Championships, the most by the program since 2002. The men and women have finished in the top three at the same outdoor championship each of the last two years, which are the only two years in program history with both finishing top three.

Montana’s men scored 107.5 points and finished 3^rd in 2026, scoring the most points since 2007 and tying for the best finish since 2016. The women scored 111 points and finished 3^rd, which was both the most points and best finish since 2017.

The men’s cross country team also had its best finish at a Big Sky Championship since 2011, coming in 5^th place at the 2026 championship.

In his first four years, Fraley’s Grizzly athletes have broken school records 61 different times. In 2026 alone, Montana broke 35 school records, setting 15 new outdoor marks and 20 new indoor marks.

Fraley has also coached 24 Big Sky individual champions and two championship relay teams. He has mentored 11 women’s outdoor champions, six women’s indoor champions, five men’s outdoor champions, and two men’s indoor champions. The Montana 4x100-meter relay teams brought home gold on the men’s and women’s side in 2026.

The head coach focuses on leading the Montana sprint group, which has become perhaps the best collection of sprinters in the entire Big Sky Conference. In the last two outdoor seasons, Fraley’s group has won two women’s 100m titles, two women’s 200m titles, one men’s 200m title, one men’s 400m title, and a men’s and women’s 4x100-meter relay.

His athletes have also won a men’s 60m title, 200m title, a women’s 60m title, and a women’s 200m title indoors. All told, Fraley has coached athletes to 10 individual gold medals and two relay gold medals in his four years.

He led Tara Ohlwiler to the sprint double in 2025 as the sophomore won both the 100m and 200m, breaking the 100m school record in the process.

Callie Wilson completed a perfect sprint season as a freshman in 2026, winning gold in the 60m and 200m indoors and then following it up with the sprint double (100m/200m) outdoors. Only three women in program history have completed the sprint double outdoors with two being coached by Fraley, and Wilson is the only Grizzly and just the fourth woman in Big Sky history to win all four sprint titles in the same year.

Wilson owns the Grizzly program records in the 60m and 200m indoors, as well as the 100m outdoors. She broke a Big Sky Championship record in the women’s 60m in 2026 with a time of 7.26 seconds.

Cooper Hewett won the men’s 60m title in 2024 to become the first short sprint champion for Montana in 26 years.

Karsen Beitz, a walk-on from Missoula, has set program records in all four short sprints for Montana indoors and outdoors. The most notable record broken was the men’s 200m outdoors, where Beitz bested a 68-year old program mark in 2026.

Beitz swept the men’s 200m podium during the 2026 season, winning gold both indoors and outdoors while earning All-Conference honors in both the 60m and 100m.

Cadence Waller won the men’s 400m title in 2026 after joining the track & field program for his final year of school. He spent the first four years on campus but outside of athletics.

The Grizzly sprint relays have been much improved under Fraley, setting records in the women’s 4x400-meter relay indoors and outdoors as well as the 4x100-meter relay outdoors. The men have also broken all three of those records in the four years under Fraley with several records standing for decades.

Lily Meskers broke the Montana 400m school record in 2026 with a time 52.80, qualifying for the NCAA West First Rounds in the process.

Overall, Fraley has led 29 athletes to the NCAA First Round in 31 different events. They sent a program record 14 athletes to the 2026 First Round meet in Fayetteville, Ark.

Wilson and Beitz became the first Grizzly sprinters to ever qualify for the First Round meet since the NCAA changed the format to East/West, and both qualified in the 100m and 200m.

Under Fraley’s leadership, Erin Wilde made Big Sky Conference history by winning seven consecutive Big Sky titles in the women’s high jump. Wilde’s seven titles in the same event are tied with Loni Perkins-Judisch for the most in a single event in program history, and she’s one of just four women in Big Sky history to win seven titles in the same event. She’s the most decorated high jumper in the history of the league.

Evan Todd and Kevin Swindler have both advanced to the NCAA Championships under Fraley. Todd did so in the men’s javelin in 2023 and Swindler qualified in the pole vault in 2026. Both athletes are Big Sky Champions and school record holders in their respective events.

In four seasons, Fraley has led the men to two Griz-Cat Dual victories. The program had not won the dual for 10 years prior to Fraley’s arrival in Missoula.

Fraley began his collegiate coaching career at Tulane, where he spent nine seasons with the Green Wave (2011-19). As the associate head coach – specializing in jumps, multi-events and men’s sprints – Fraley developed 24 NCAA East Regional qualifiers, seven NCAA Championship qualifiers and five All-Americans. He also was instrumental in the development of five academic All-Americans, in addition to assisting with strength & conditioning for the sprints and jumps groups.

During his final season at Tulane (2018-19), Fraley’s pole vaulters swept the podium at the American Athletic Conference Indoor Championships. In addition to a pair of freshmen, who placed second and third, Rebekah Markel won an individual title after she set meet and school records. She would repeat as champion during the outdoor season that spring and go on to qualify for the NCAA Championships, where she placed 14th.

A few seasons prior, in 2017, Alyssa Applebee won AAC indoor and outdoor conference championships before earning first-team All-America status at nationals. Fraley also coached Merritt Van Meter (2013 outdoors, 2014 indoors in the pole vault) and Devon Breaux (2015 long jump) to All-America status. Also coaching the men’s sprints, he helped his athletes to podium finishes in both 2017 and 2018, including a school record in the 4x100-meter relay.

After nearly a decade coaching at Tulane, Fraley made the cross-country move to the Palouse, where he spent three seasons at Washington State. Working with the Cougars’ jumps and multi-events groups, Fraley again saw success, helping develop 10 NCAA Championships qualifiers and five first-team All-Americans. Competing against the always-tough Pac-12 Conference, he had five athletes reach the podium, including 2022 pole vault champion Jacob Englar.

Fraley is a highly successful coach, but was a widely renowned athlete, as well. As an student-athlete at Fresno State in the late 1980s, Fraley was a three-time NCAA champion in the pole vault, jumping for his father and winning an indoor title in 1986 before sweeping the indoor and outdoor awards the following year. He was the Fresno State Athlete of the Year in 1985, 1986 and 1987 and was inducted into the Fresno State Athletic Hall of Fame in 2004. He graduated with a degree in Kinesiology.

After college, Fraley continued to compete on a regular basis as a part of the International Association of Athletics Federations Grand Prix circuit and qualified for six U.S. national teams and two Olympic Trials competitions. He also qualified for multiple World Grand Prix finals and finished fourth overall at the event in 1987. His personal record was collected in 1992 when he cleared 19-0.25 (5.80 meters) at a competition in Sestriere, Italy.

Fraley has remained incredibly active in the development of the sport that he has dedicated his life to. He has been a keynote speaker and is an annual lecturer at the National Pole Vault Summit in Reno, Nevada, and has acted as the Master of Ceremonies at the National Pole Vault Summit and the North American Pole Vault Championships, both events which he helped organize. He also contributed to the growth of track & field by serving as a member of the United States Track & Field Pole Vault Development coaching staff for 17 years, from 1994-2010.

Pole vault has been a part of Fraley’s life for as long as he can remember, so it’s no surprise that it’s how he was introduced to his wife, as well. The former Erica Bartolina was a 2008 Olympic pole vaulter in Beijing, in addition to being a two-time Big 12 Conference champion at Texas A&M. She, too, has collegiate coaching experience, in addition to owning and running the Louisiana Pole Vault Compound, a training facility outside of New Orleans.

His father, Bob Fraley, was a hall-of-fame pole vault coach in California, developing 44 All-Americans over a 28-year coaching career at Fresno State, being inducted into the Fresno State Athletics and U.S. Pole Vault hall of fames, in addition to being named the 2003 USA Track & Field NIKE Coach of the Year.