Cross Country/Track & Field

Former West Coast Conference runner Pete Cushman is in his 12th season with Santa Clara cross country/track & field in 2022-23. 2021-22 was his first as the head coach for the women's cross country/track & field teams after 10 as a associate head coach for both the men's and women's programs. Cushman joined the Bronco coaching staff in August 2012 as an assistant coach for his second stint with the team — he was a volunteer assistant coach from 2004-06. 

Jack Davidson had one of the best debut seasons in program history as part of the 2016-17 campaign. He cracked Santa Clara's Top 10 list at 8 kilometers (24:36 at the Bronco Invitational) and 10 kilometers (31:46 at the NCAA West Regional Meet). During the spring, Davidson set a program record with a 5,000-meter 14:23.35 at the Mt. SAC Relays. He also posted the second-best 1,500-meter time and third-fastest 3,000-meter time by a Bronco. Overall, the men combined to log eight new times across their respective Top 10 lists on the track. Cross country its strong academic performance by earning 16 spots on the 2016 West Coast Conference All-Academic Teams. Santa Clara had five more runners recognized for their work in the classroom than any other conference program. The men had at least three more runners and the women had at least two more runners honored than any other team.

In 2015-16, Mary Kriege and Grayson Murphy each had outstanding seasons in the fall and spring. Kriege took 14th place and Murphy finished 15th at the West Coast Conference Championships in Spokane, Washington; eached earned Second Team All-WCC honors. They were the first Bronco female runners since Stephanie Wilson in 2010 to receive all-conference recognition. Murphy's 20:46 and Kriege's 20:50 in the Bronco Invitational 6-kilometer race were good for the second-fastest and third-fastest Bronco all-time marks, respectively. On the track, the pair became Santa Clara's first female runners — and just the third and fourth runners in program history — to qualify for the NCAA West Region Preliminary Meet (Kriege at 5,000m and 10,000m/Murhpy in the 3000m steeplechase and at 5,000m).

Santa Clara set a pair of school records and nine PRs between the men's and women's teams at the 2014 West Coast Conference Cross Country Championships. In his only year with the Broncos, Harvard graduate Kurt Ruegg set a school record by running 23:53 at Baylands Park, while the Bronco men's team (Ruegg, Bryan Crook, Adrian Hinojosa, Joey Berriatua and Ryan Greenough) set a school record with an average time of 24:30 in the 8k race. Four of the men set personal best 8k marks and all of Santa Clara's top five finishers in the women's 6k — Grayson Murphy, Kelly Ryan, Hannah Wood, Kaitlyn Kuehn and Amia Nash — set personal best marks as well. Ruegg built off a strong performance earlier in the year at Baylands, when he took second place at the Bronco Invitational. In 2014-15, the Broncos had Berriatua, Murphy, Ruegg and Mary Kriege combine to set six school records between the fall cross country and spring track seasons.

In 2013 the men's and women's cross country teams both finished sixth at the West Coast Conference Championships. In addition, Ben Demaree was named the WCC Post-Graduate Scholarship winner and Allie Sibole won the 2014 St. Clarie Medal at SCU.

For the 10th straight quarter, the men's cross country team had the highest term GPA after the Spring 2014 quarter.  The men's cross country team posted a 3.443 GPA in the Spring quarter and they also have the highest cumulative GPA among men's teams at 3.405. Women's cross country has the highest cumulative GPA on the women's side at 3.386.

Cushman, a Boise, Idaho native, spent six years working as an assistant track and field and cross country coach for San Francisco State prior to rejoining the staff at Santa Clara. While at SFSU, he assisted in coaching the school’s second-ever Division II All-American, as well as helping both the men’s and women’s teams achieve their highest finishes in school history at the conference and regional levels in 2011. Cushman is also a coach for the Impala women’s running club in San Francisco. The Impalas had six women qualify for the US Olympic trials in the marathon in 2008 while 14 qualified in 2012. 

Cushman attended Gonzaga University from 2000-04 and competed in cross country and track while an undergrad. He was the team captain from 2002-04. He earned his MA in Health, Physical Education and Recreation from Saint Mary’s in 2006.