Athletic director Christian Spears announced the newly reinstated men’s track and field, Wednesday, Oct. 19 at his “State of the Herd” presser.

Spears said the board of governors approved reinstating the men’s indoor and outdoor track.

“Today, we successfully asked the board of governors to consider allowing us to add men’s indoor and outdoor track back as a sponsored sport at Marshall, which would allow us to compete in the sunbelt track and field championships, he said. “We’ve had a men’s cross-country program for a number of years, but unfortunately, they haven’t been able to compete in an indoor or outdoor championship as a part of their affiliation because the conference we were previously in had a scholarship requirement.”

Spears gave specifics on why the cross-country team couldn’t compete.

“We’re at five full scholarships in cross-country, but in order to compete in the track and field program, you need to be at 12.6, and because of that, we never had to opportunity to ask to compete in Conference-USA in an indoor and outdoor track and field championship,” he said.

The sun belt requirement is based on the number of participants available to participate in a championship sport; Marshall is at 14.

Marshall plans on finding 20 to 40 track and field student-athletes to help launch their track and field program in the Sun Belt.

Spears expressed his happiness about Marshall being able to recruit locally.

“It’s an opportunity for us to recruit the best and brightest young people from West Virginia. We will be the only Division I program in the state of West Virginia to have men’s track and field as a sponsored sport that competes in a conference championship,” he said. “Just ecstatic for our program, and honestly and more importantly, I do think it augments the experience that our women’s track and field will have.”

Cross-country head coach Caleb Bowen said he’s excited about the recent news.

“It’s just amazing; this is something we’ve been waiting on,” he said. “We have a really talented men’s group right now, who, to be honest, are probably better track athletes than cross-country athletes.”