The Man from Lacey, Washington Who Built a Dynasty

Rob Conner, Head Men’s Cross Country and Track & Field Coach, University of Portland Pilots. In 35 years, he has transformed a small Catholic university into one of the most decorated distance running programs in the NCAA.

How a kid from a rain-soaked track in Lacey, Washington, became one of the most decorated distance running coaches in NCAA history.

By Coach Larry Weber | coachweber.org

On a cold November morning in Louisville, Kentucky, in 2017, Rob Conner stood at the finish line of the NCAA Division I Cross Country Championships. He watched his University of Portland Pilots cross in second place — the best finish in program history. The course was muddy. The wind was cutting. And the head coach from a small Catholic university on the banks of the Willamette River had just announced himself, definitively, to the entire country.

It was a long way from Lacey, Washington.

But in another sense, it was exactly where the journey had always been pointing.

★ ★ ★

Rob Conner ran the 1600 and 3200 meters at Timberline High School in Lacey, Washington, in the late 1970s and early 1980s. He was outgoing, competitive, and fiercely driven — the kind of athlete who filled a room before the race even started. I know this firsthand. Rob grew up less than two miles from where I live today, and I followed his running career as a young man. We have many mutual running and coaching friends. Even then, there was something about him that went beyond talent. He had the hunger.

He went on to compete at the University of Portland, where he graduated in 1986. Four years later, he returned — not as an athlete, but as a coach. He set a single, clear goal: get the Pilots to the NCAA Championships. What followed was one of the most quietly remarkable sustained runs of coaching excellence in the history of collegiate distance running.

In 35 years leading the Portland program, Conner has guided the Pilots to 23 NCAA Cross Country Championship appearances and ten top-ten national finishes. His athletes have earned 50 All-America honors. In five years that would define any coaching career, Portland finished third at the national championships in 2014, second in 2017, and third again in 2018 — three podium finishes that placed the Pilots in the company of programs with resources and recruiting budgets that dwarf what a school of Portland’s size can offer.

He has also led the Pilots to 34 West Coast Conference cross-country titles, and Portland has been ranked in the national top 25 every year but one since 1991. Among his athletes is Woody Kincaid, who won the 10,000 meters at the 2021 U.S. Olympic Trials. The list of Pilot runners who have gone on to national-level careers is long and growing.

“My real goal is to provide an opportunity for everyone on the team to work hard and see what they can achieve. I’m more like, ‘Hey, we got to worry about the process.’”

— Rob Conner, Head Coach, University of Portland

The awards have followed the results. Conner has been named the West Region Cross Country Coach of the Year seven times and the West Coast Conference Coach of the Year on eight occasions. In 2018, he was honored with the Slats Gill Sportsperson of the Year at the Oregon Sports Awards — one of the most prestigious coaching distinctions in the Pacific Northwest. In 2024, he was inducted into the West Coast Conference Hall of Honor, joining a small group of coaches whose careers have shaped the conference for generations.

What makes the numbers even more striking is the context in which they were built. The University of Portland is a small, private Catholic institution. It does not have the enrollment, the endowment, or the athletic infrastructure of the programs it routinely defeats at the national level. What it has had, for 35 years, is Rob Conner.

Those who know him say his genius lies not in tactics but in people. He recruits athletes that other coaches overlook. He builds trust before he builds workouts. He is known on the Portland campus as someone who wants to know who his athletes are as people — not just what they can run. One telling detail captures the man perfectly: on trail runs with his team, he has been known to forage wild mushrooms and stinging nettles from the forest floor and cook them for dinner that same night. That is Rob Conner. Authentic, creative, and fully himself at all times.

That character was formed somewhere. I believe it was formed, at least in part, on the tracks and trails of Thurston County, Washington — the same stretch of South Sound geography that has produced an extraordinary number of elite coaches, athletes, and contributors to American distance running.

One of the reasons I write this series is to shine a light on the accomplishments this community has produced that the broader world has not always noticed. Rob Conner belongs with a select group at the very top of that list. He is one of the finest collegiate distance coaches of his generation — not by accident, not by resources, but by work, by vision, and by the deep belief that the process is always the point.

He started at a high school track in Lacey, Washington. He built a dynasty in Portland, Oregon. And he has never forgotten where the journey began.

Rob is an integral part of Thurston County running history.

Blessings,

Coach Weber

Philippians 4:13

Thurston County Running and Track & Field Historian

About the Author

Larry Weber is the Head Cross Country and Track and Field Coach at Pope John Paul II High School in Lacey, Washington, and a 2026 inductee into the Washington State Cross Country Coaches Hall of Fame. He focuses on developing a program of faith, character, and competitive excellence, and writes the Thurston County Running History Series to preserve and celebrate the remarkable athletic legacy of the South Sound running community. You can follow his work at Coach Weber.

Coach Larry Weber and University of Portland Head Coach Rob Conner, pictured together at the University of Portland. Rob grew up less than two miles from where Coach Weber lives today in Lacey, Washington.

A young Rob Conner (in the blue sweatshirt) running at Timberline High School in Lacey, Washington — the same track and neighborhood where his journey to national coaching greatness began.