A 19-year-old Greg Kraft told his hometown newspaper he intended to be a college coach “sooner or later.”
“I think I’d really enjoy it and I think I’d be a pretty good coach,” he remarked to Steve Tadevich of The Argus (Fremont, California) in the summer of 1974.
Kraft far outshot his prediction, as nearly 50 years later he is included in the Class of 2022 into the USTFCCCA Coaches Hall of Fame. He left his positive mark on five programs in his 40-year coaching career, transforming two of those into national powers when he added director and head coaching responsibilities to his reputation as an excellent technical coach.
The majority of his career – 23 years, to be exact – came at Arizona State, where he transitioned from coach to administrator in 2019 after what he termed a “wonderful ride” as the Director of Track & Field and Cross Country.
That expedition started at the lowest of moments, when Arizona State was looking for a coach while its track & field program was on probation. ASU athletic director Kevin White changed the direction on July 28, 1996, when his national search for a new track & field leader lured Kraft away from a burgeoning power he was building at South Carolina.
“This is a huge day for us, a huge appointment,” ASU AD Kevin White said. “We couldn’t be more excited over this. This makes a whole lot of sense. He has impeccable integrity, is committed to the student-athlete, is a strong, determined leader and a proven recruiter. And you need a CEO-type to be your track & field coach.”
Kraft not only righted the Sun Devil ship, but began a renaissance for ASU track & field, amassing multiple team championships that put ASU and Kraft in exclusive company.
In 2007, Kraft led the ASU women’s program to a sweep of the NCAA Division I indoor and outdoor championships, joining LSU and Texas as the only programs with that achievement. Then in 2008, Kraft became just the second head coach to lead men’s and women’s programs to NCAA Division I national team crowns in the same year after sweeping the NCAA DI Indoor Track & Field Championships.
Those four NCAA titles are among ASU’s 12 top-five finishes at the NCAA DI Indoor or Outdoor Track & Field Championships under Kraft’s leadership, and Sun Devil athletes combined for 38 NCAA event titles under his direction.
Kraft earned multiple coaching honors at Arizona State. Four times he was named USTFCCCA National Coach of the Year, along with seven times as the West Region Coach of the Year. Three times he was named Pac-10 Coach of the Year.
Two of his most successful athletes were Dwight Phillips, a seven-time All-American in just two years at ASU, who continued under Kraft as a post-collegian to win Olympic gold in the 2004 long jump, and Jackie Johnson, a seven-time NCAA champion in the heptathlon/pentathlon who was among the inaugural class inducted to the National Collegiate Track & Field/Cross Country Hall of Fame.
Kraft worked wonders at his other head coaching job, bringing South Carolina from the Metro Conference to the Southeastern Conference, where the Gamecocks were initially near the bottom of team standings. By his final season in 1996, South Carolina was top-5 in the SEC with a high of runner-up in the women’s outdoor competition, earning Kraft SEC Women’s Coach of the Year honors.
Kraft’s coaching journey began at his alma mater, Cal Poly, where he met at least two important people. One was Steve Miller, a 2005 inductee in the USTFCCCA Coaches Hall of Fame who gave him a graduate assistant position and then two years later followed with an offer to be assistant coach at Kansas State after Kraft spent one year at Indiana State. He spent four years with the Wildcats before being hired away by Virginia, where he also worked for four years as an assistant before South Carolina came calling.
The other important person Kraft met at Cal Poly was his future wife, Maggie Keyes, who won national titles in the mile (1980 TAC Indoor) and 1500 (1980 AIAW Outdoor) and represented the U.S. in the inaugural World Championships in 1983 in the 3000 meters. The Krafts have two sons, Kyle and Cory, who both graduated from ASU.