A Havahla Haynes is in her seventh season (2025-26) at the helm of the SMU Track & Field / Cross Country programs.
In her time at SMU, which includes cancellations to the 2020 outdoor season and the 2021 American Athletic Conference Indoor Championships due to the COVID pandemic, the Mustang track and field athletes have garnered 10 All-American honors and have had seven conference champions. Under Haynes’s leadership, the team has claimed 15 program records and posted more than 100 marks which rank in the program’s all-time top 10 for an event. SMU also had their highest team placement in 13 years at the NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships in 2024. Haynes has lead the SMU cross country athletes to eight All-Conference honors, including Emily Little claiming the first ACC honors for SMU in their first year as part of the conference, and seven All-Region honors.
In the Fall of 2024, Haynes ushered the team into a new era at SMU as they entered the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC). In their first year in the conference, she also brought track and field back to Dallas — hosting the first home track meet in 27 years.
Haynes’s athletes have performed, not just on the track, but also in the classroom. The cross country team has earned the highest GPA on campus each year under Haynes, and both the cross country and track and field teams have earned numerous All-Conference Academic honors and All-Academic national honors — both as a team and individually.
Haynes came to SMU from Northwestern, where she served as Head Coach of the cross country program from 2015 to 2019. In her four seasons at the helm, Haynes led the Wildcats steadily up the Big Ten standings and saw her student-athletes set 15 school records. In 2018, Haynes led Northwestern's Aubrey Roberts to the first cross country All-America honors in school history, as she finished 18th at the NCAA Championships. It was the third-consecutive NCAA Championship meet appearance for Roberts, all coming under Haynes. Roberts also became the first woman in school history to earn All-America honors at the NCAA Indoor Track & Field Championships with a 10th-place finish in the 5,000-meters in 2019. Haynes-coached Wildcats also qualified for the IAAF World Junior Team and NACAC Junior Team. In the classroom, Haynes' teams earned perfect APR scores in 2016, 2017 and 2018, and were named NCAA Division I All-Academic Teams in 2015, 2016 and 2017.
Haynes returned to Evanston after five seasons at New Mexico where she served as the Associate Head Coach of both the cross country and track & field programs. In the fall of 2014, she helped lead the Lobos to a third-place finish at the NCAA Division I Women's Cross Country Championships, which, at that time, was the best result in school history and the team's fifth-consecutive national Top-10 finish. During the five years in Albuquerque, she guided her runners to 10 Mountain West Conference (MWC) Cross Country Team Championships (five men, five women), four MWC Indoor Track & Field Team Championships (two men, two women) and a men's Outdoor Track & Field Title. Her group also captured five Mountain Region Cross Country Championships. Under her tutelage, Lobos student-athletes earned 10 All-America honors and six MWC individual titles in cross country, 10 All-America nods and 14 MWC individual crowns in indoor track, and eight All-America awards and 14 MWC individual championships in outdoor track.
Prior to her tenure at New Mexico, Haynes spent two years as Northwestern's assistant cross country coach. The Phillips, Wisconsin, native earned All-Big Ten and All-Midwest honors for both cross country and track & field at Wisconsin. She was a member of the 2006 Badgers cross country team that placed fourth at the NCAA Championships and she competed in three NCAA Cross Country Championships during her college career. On the track, she set the then-school record in the 3,000-meter steeplechase and earned All-America honors in 2007. She also qualified to the 2008 Olympic Trials in the steeplechase.
Haynes earned her bachelor's degree in sociology from the University of Wisconsin and a Master's of Sports Administration with a focus in marketing & public relations from Northwestern University.
SMU All-American Honors
Chelsea Francis: 60m Indoor (2020)
Ashton Woods: 4x400 HM Outdoor (2021), 400m Hurdles 2nd-Team (2021)
Annette Bolomboy: 4x400 HM Outdoor (2021)
Whitney Williams: 4x400 HM Outdoor (2021)
Chika Iwuamadi: 4x400 HM Outdoor (2021)
Jernaya Sharp: 100m HM Hurdles Outdoor (2021)
Raelyn Roberson: LJ Outdoor 2nd Team(2023)
Funminiyi Olajide: LJ Indoor (2024), Outdoor (2024)
