John Hayes has served as director of track and field and cross country at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, since August 2016, overseeing a program that has reestablished itself in the ACC and on the national level. Across his coaching career, Hayes has guided teams to 14 NCAA Division I cross country championship appearances, 20 top-15 NCAA team finishes in track and cross country, 17 Division I conference team titles, 63 All-America honors, and seven NCAA individual championships. His work has also included coaching two athletes to three USA 1500-meter national titles from 2009 through 2014, and he served as an assistant coach for the United States national team at the 2022 World Athletics U20 Championships in Cali, Colombia.
At Wake Forest, Hayes has directed broad improvement in both cross country and track and field. Under his leadership, Demon Deacon athletes have set 78 school records, earned 146 All-ACC honors and 35 All-America citations, and received 239 All-ACC Academic awards. He was named USTFCCCA Southeast Region Men's Cross Country Coach of the Year four times and ACC Men's Cross Country Coach of the Year in 2022 and 2024. Wake Forest's men's cross country team rose from 14th at the 2015 ACC Championships before his arrival to conference titles in 2022 and 2024, and from 23rd in the Southeast Region in 2015 to a regional championship in 2021, the program's first in 28 years. The team qualified for the NCAA Championships five straight years and improved from 15th to 10th to fifth nationally in 2022, its best finish in nearly three decades, before placing seventh at the 2024 NCAA Cross Country Championships after finishing 24th the year before. Over the past seven seasons, the men's cross country program has produced 28 All-ACC selections, 30 All-Region honors, six All-America awards, four ACC Freshman of the Year recipients, and a Southeast Region Men's Athlete of the Year in Zach Facioni. Wake Forest's women's cross country team narrowly missed NCAA qualification in both 2023 and 2024, finishing each year ranked No. 32 nationally and entering 2025 with a No. 25 ranking.
