My guest for today's episode is Diljeet Taylor. We had her on the show last fall after she won the NCAA Cross Country Championships with her BYU women. For those of you who aren't familiar, she's one of the most transformative coaches in the sport. She's built BYU's women's cross country program and distance program into a national powerhouse, coaching NCAA champions, Olympians, and creating one of the strongest cultures in collegiate running.

Now she's stepping into an even bigger role, leading a professional training group with Nike while continuing to coach at BYU. Nike has announced Swoosh TC for Oregon, Utah, and Arizona. It's being described by the brand as a network of elite athletes, coaches, and innovators working together to push the boundaries of performance and progress.

Coach Taylor will oversee the Utah division, Jerry Schumacher will head Oregon along with Shalane Flanagan, and Mike Smith will lead the club in Arizona beginning in July 2025 with partnership from Rachel Smith. In this conversation, we make sense of what all of that means.

We get into the behind the scenes details of her new role, how she's balancing coaching, both collegiate and professional athletes, and what it takes to develop elite runners at the highest level. We also touch on the mindset of success, the importance of culture, and the transition from NCAA to professional racing.

Host: Chris Chavez | ⁠@chris_j_chavez on Instagram

Guest: Diljeet Taylor | @diljeetdosanjhtaylor on Instagram

Episode Highlights:

The following excerpt has been edited lightly for clarity. You can listen to the full episode with Diljeet Taylor on the CITIUS MAG Podcast.

CITIUS MAG: You officially signed with Nike to lead a professional training group out of Utah. What have the last couple months looked like behind-the-scenes?

DILJEET TAYLOR: It hasn't looked much different since I was already coaching a couple of pros. We [already] had that structure set up where workout days for the pros were Tuesdays and Fridays and it was just incorporating the new women, the Nike women, into that existing structure… I was super excited to kick-off our first pro debut in Boston and have it go the way that it did. It’s been a really humbling experience to work with the new women.

How has your approach to coaching changed or differed with your pro women?

There's not a lot different. Obviously having an 18-year-old that hasn't gone through the NCAA system yet, you're navigating things and the landscape is very different – although now it's changing more where the collegiate [system] is like the professional world a little bit. But the care, the investment, the commitment, the building of the culture, believing – all of that for me is very similar. That's what I was really excited to see in those first three years that I did it. It yielded the same result and that sense of belief. I'm excited to do it that way and I will continue to do it that way. I feel like that's kind of my signature now.

The difference comes more with a different level of competition. Once you sign that professional contract, it becomes more of a job in making sure the athletes are still being holistically supported. In college, there's naturally these built-in distractions with social life and having to attend classes. But once you sign a pro contract, it’s your 24/7. So it’s really making sure that they're still finding that sense of balance and growing in other aspects of their life as well.

How fulfilling has it been for you as a coach to watch your pros succeed?

At the beginning, I never thought I would even coach one pro. I always said I'm not going to coach pros. Then having three women who had won national championships wanting to sign professional contracts and chase this dream put me in a position where I felt like I needed to.

But how fulfilling has it been? I wouldn't say it’s the outcome itself. I focus more on the journey of what it took to get there. Seeing them not just at their highs but also at their lows and how they fought to climb back up has taught me a lot about resilience and being relentless. I've become a better coach because I have the opportunity to work with these pro women and I'm excited to continue to get better, learn from them, and make sure that they're at the center of everything that I do. Being in Paris at the Olympics with two women just standing in the Stade de France and taking all of that in – I hope to do that a lot of times and to build off of that.

What does it take to be a fit on Coach Taylor's roster of professional athletes?

For college, your talent is a little bit of it – but that's already a given when someone has signed a professional contract because there's things you have to check off the list to even have that opportunity.

Dreams and passion are super important for me as a coach. That's what I want to invest in: their dreams and passion. It’s also just being a fit for the environment that they're in. This isn't going to be a fit for everyone. That's why it's great that we have a network and a bunch of hubs that the athletes can choose from. But that's a big one for me: someone who's really passionate about it. I feed off of it everyday, I bring it to practice everyday, so I want to make sure that the athlete I'm coaching have that same level of commitment and passion.

How hard is it for you as a coach to know that sometimes in practice one athlete’s biggest competition is their own teammate?

You have to approach it with an abundance mentality. I think if you approach it with this scarcity mentality of, ‘There's only three spots and I'm working out with someone who's maybe taking my spot,’ you're sending the wrong message to yourself. I think the better approach is ‘iron sharpens iron.’ We're making each other better and going to the starting line with the confidence that your teammate has been doing the same workouts with you, so let's do it together. That's going to be my mindset to help alleviate some of that competitive but normal feeling of, ‘There's only three spots.’

Jerry Schumacher’s got the Oregon hub. Mike Smith's got the Flagstaff hub. What elements of coaching do you think they do really well?

Jerry's already done a lot of great things with Bowerman, so that has kind of proven that it can be done… I love [Mike Smith’s] approach to the culture piece of it. I think that's something that we're very relatable on: making sure that [culture] is a driving force of your success and not a byproduct of it. It’s making sure that the culture is established before and then success comes after. I know people throw around the word culture, but it really is a defining thing on any team, pro or collegiate. Watching him win five national championships is inspiring.

We also just bring out the best in each other. Having these guys that I can collaborate with and pick up the phone and call is going to make all of us better. I think that's the beauty of this network and these hubs: putting three coaches in positions to be successful with their own athletes, but also giving us opportunities to grow, learn, and be better at our craft as well.

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