| Ellannee Richardson |
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- BORN: March 18, 1980
- HOMETOWN: Gladstone, Oregon
- COLLEGE: Washington State University (B.A., 2002; M.A. 2007)
- WSU APPOINTMENT: 2003 - Assistant track and field coach
Ellannee Richardson's calm and quiet demeanor contradicts her fierce competitive spirit. She is achieving prominence as a Cougar coach just as she did as a student-athlete and instilling that same competitive fire in her sprint and relay runners.
Richardson joined the WSU Track & Field coaching staff as a fulltime assistant in 2003 after an illustrious athletic and academic career as a student-athlete and works with assistant coach Mark Macdonald in the sprints, hurdles and relays.
During the 2008 indoor season, the Cougar men's 1600m relay team of Barry Leavitt, Reny Follett, Jeshua Anderson and Justin Woods ran the school record time of 3:08.86. This same foursome ran an outdoor time of 3:07.47, sixth-best in WSU all-time records and earned a trip to the NCAA Championships.
Richardson was named the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) West Region men's sprints/hurdles 2006 Coach of the Year. That year James McSwain, Jaycee Robertson, Justin Woods and Martin Boston advanced to the NCAA Championships in the sprints and 4x100m relay.
In addition to her coaching duties, Richardson finished fifth in the 400m dash at the 2004 USA Indoor Track & Field Championships and competed on the USA National Indoor Track and Field 4x400m relay at the IAAF World Indoor Championships at Budapest, Hungary. At the 2004 US Olympic Trials, she missed the 400m hurdles final after running a PR time of 55.61 in the prelims and 56.27 in the semifinals, just 24/100s of a second from qualifying for the final.
Richardson was a five-time All-American heptathlete and sprinter at WSU. She is a four-time All-America heptathlete taking second place at the 2003 and 2002 NCAA Championships and earned an All-America certificate at the 2003 NCAA Indoor Meet anchoring the women's 4x400m relay to seventh place with a school-record time of 3:35.49. She also anchored the 1600m relay to a school record outdoor time of 3:33.65 for second place at the NCAA West Regional and a trip to the national meet with teammates Tiffany Giles, Monique Jessie and Tamara Gulley.
Richardson currently holds school records in the 400m relay (44.50), 1600m relay for indoor and outdoor races, but during her career also reached school records in the heptathlon, 100m hurdles and the indoor 400m dash. In WSU all-time records, Richardson's performances are in the top five in eight different events and eighth in the long jump. A three-time Pac-10 heptathlon champion, Richardson was ranked as the third-best heptathlete (top collegiate) in the United States in 2003 by Track & Field News.
She garnered these awards in 2003: WSU's Pac-10 Medal Winner, Cougar Pride Academic Salute Trophy, Senior Excellence in Academics, Pac-10 Postgraduate Scholarship, Arthur Ashe Jr. Sports Scholar First Team, NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship, nominee for NCAA Woman of the Year, and Verizon/CoSIDA National Academic All-American second team. A 2002 WSU graduate with a B.A. in sociology, Richardson completed her master's degree in criminal justice in 2007.
