Family Atmosphere Attracted Geopfert to K-State

By: D. Scott Fritchen

Travis Geopfert sits in the conference room at the Vanier Family Football Complex wearing a black polo shirt. It's 9:52 a.m. In about an hour, he will be formally introduced as the seventh full-time Director of Track and Field/Cross Country in Kansas State history. He is picking between two dress shirts — one plain lavender, and one lavender and white. He goes with the plain lavender to go along with his off-white suit for the news conference.

He's already making important decisions.

Before he enters the Vanier Steel and Pipe Team Theatre, where he will be introduced by K-State Director of Athletics Gene Taylor, Geopfert sits down at the clear glass table in the conference room to discuss his excitement over becoming the leader of the Wildcats, along with his 22 years of coaching experience, including 12 at Arkansas. Geopfert, a native of Panora, Iowa, and 2002 graduate of Northern Iowa, was a part of two NCAA Championship teams and earned USTFCCCA National Assistant of the Year following the 2013, 2014 and 2023 men's indoor seasons and the 2023 men's outdoor season at Arkansas.

Besides his two NCAA team championships, Geopfert has been a part of 24 top-10 NCAA team finishes and 37 conference team championships at Central Missouri, Northern Iowa, Arkansas and Tennessee.

"The sustained success during Coach (Cliff) Rovelto's Hall-of-Fame career and the recent facility upgrades for our program made this a very attractive job sought after by many phenomenal candidates," Taylor says. "Travis' recent success at one of the top track and field programs in the country certainly speak for itself, but he also has strong Midwest roots, head coaching experience and a tremendous ability to recruit globally. He will coach eight Olympians in this year's Paris games, and we are excited for the future of K-State Track and Field under his leadership."

Geopfert enjoyed a notable career of his own as a combined events athlete and sprinter at Northern Iowa from 1997-2002. While competing for the Panthers, he won the decathlon at the 1998 Missouri Valley Conference Championship and was part of multiple conference-winning relay teams, including the 1999 4x100-meter relay and 2000 indoor distance medley relay teams. He earned 2000 Indoor All-American honors in the distance medley relay.

He went onto finish as the runner-up in the 2003 Drake Relays before winning the event in 2004 and 2006. He was a five-time national qualifier at the USATF Indoor and Outdoor Championships while also qualifying for the 2004 Olympic Trials. A member of the U.S. vs. Germany decathlon Thorpe Cup duel teams in 2003, 2005 and 2006, Geopfert was coached by Rovelto.

Geopfert sat down with K-State Sports Extra's D. Scott Fritchen to discuss his exciting journey with the Wildcats:

D. Scott Fritchen: What attracted you most to the K-State job?

Travis Geopfert: It's interesting. Coach Chris Klieman, we worked at the same time at Northern Iowa, and he had reached out asking if I was interested in the head track job. I got some advice a long time ago from Hall of Fame coach Ed Nuttycombe to always listen. So, I listened and then when I got here the people, first and foremost, we have family, our kids are 10, 11 and 12, so you can feel the family atmosphere around here, which we value tremendously, and then, really, when I started to tour the facilities, I started to get pretty excited. When you look at the track and field facilities here at Kansas State with the new indoor track in particular and both the tracks being adjacent and the details for what you need for training for track and field, it arguably might be the best setup in the United States. It's absolutely world class. It's phenomenal. Once we get phase two done on the indoor track and get seats in there and the entryway and all that stuff, I think the world is going to know that Kansas State might be one of the best places in the world to train.

Fritchen: What did you already know about K-State when you began looking at this opportunity?

Geopfert: Cliff Rovelto. I knew about Cliff. Legendary coach. Coach Rovelto is one of the very best to ever do it in our sport. Cliff has been a tremendous mentor for me. I made my first international team in 2003, and we were in Germany and Cliff was one of the coaches. After the meet, we had a good meet, and the rest of the crew went out to celebrate. I was a young coach, a graduate assistant at Central Missouri looking to take my first full-time job at Northern Iowa at the time, and I sat up until four in the morning picking the brain of Coach Rovelto, which was absolutely awesome. I asked him, "Hey, do you mind when we return sending me some workouts?" He did not send me workouts. He sent me articles so I could learn on my own. I still have those articles to this day on jumps training and plyometric training and all that stuff. I've been mentored by him in a lot of ways and have observed him over the years. What I knew about Kansas State was Cliff Rovelto.

Fritchen: What is the mission and some of the core values you live by that might be able to translate to the field?

Geopfert: The core values I live by is the team. I really, really want to have a team culture and a team environment. I think it's important for athletes to know that they're competing for something bigger than themselves. Track and field is such an individual sport, but we need to foster the team concept around that. These individual performances will allow us to have a good team result, and when we're in the mix for conference and national trophies and titles, when the 5K is going on, the throwers and jumpers and sprinters, they're going to be lining that fence because they know those athletes and know that their points matter for the team result. That's a huge, huge point of focus for me.

Fritchen: Can you give a sense for the schedule or timeline of things you hope to attack and achieve leading up to the season?

Geopfert: There are a couple things I want to do. I want to bring the team together and have some type of social event, probably around a football game, where we invite alums back and athletes and their families and have some type of meet-and-greet with the coaching staff and for everybody to get to know each other a little bit. That would be tremendous. Another thing I really want to do, earlier rather than later, is a media day for these athletes. Social media is so important for these days for these athletes and it's such a huge part in what we do. It's the front porch of all our recruiting efforts. It's a really, really big deal. Kansas State to a little degree is a well-kept secret and I don't want to keep it a secret anymore. I want the world to know about Kansas State track and field. I think those two things are huge priorities.

Fritchen: How excited are you for the opportunity to compete in the new Big 12 Conference?

Geopfert: I'm pumped. You look at the conference and you're bringing in some perennial powers, and you look out west at Arizona, Arizona State, BYU, Colorado and Utah, you look at the track conference and it's amazing. It's absolutely amazing. I'm excited for the competition for that. I've been in the SEC for a long time, and I know what that's like, and I'm really excited to see what the Big 12 is like. The new Big 12 is a track-and-field powerhouse across the board.

Fritchen: What did you learn most over your time at Arkansas?

Geopfert: Two things. You have to have athletes that love to compete, that want to do it, and there's no room for laziness. You can't coach that. You can't fix that. You can't teach that. There are other things you can coach and fix, but you can't fix laziness. You have to have athletes that are highly motivated, intrinsically motivated. That's really important. You have to recruit in a way that fosters that. If you're scared, then you should maybe consider someplace else, but if you want to get after this thing, we're going to do it. To loop it in, though, what I believe strongly is you have to understand that we're going to have fun doing this. You have to enjoy the journey. If it's all business all the time, it's not worth your time. If you're not having fun, it's not worth your time. You have to have fun and understand that winning is fun and improving is fun and having coaches and athletes and teammates that push you and believe you is fun. All of those things. Lastly, I'd say what I've learned a long time and beyond my years at Arkansas is to value your relationships above all other things. If you can keep the student-athlete's best interest at heart in every decision you make, you're going to be OK.

Fritchen: You were a decorated athlete yourself. Was track and field your first love growing up?

Geopfert: Probably football. I got started in track when I was younger, but I was also big into football. I went to Northern Iowa for both football and track. I was recruited pretty heavily for football. But track and field emerged along the way. One of my mentors, Kip Janvrin, who recently retired at Central Missouri, his dad, Ken, was my high school track coach. So, Kip was from a small town in Iowa and his dad, Ken, was just a legendary track coach. He coached for 34 years, and it came down to the 4x400 and we won his first state title in his year of retirement my senior year. It was pretty special. At a young age, I went to my first Drake Relays in 1985, and that really got the party started. So, track and field has been in my blood a long time. My dad ran track, and he fostered that love for it with us, and we did some of the age-group stuff growing up. I've done 54 decathlons over my career, and it started when I was 14. It's been a lot.

Fritchen: What led to your interest in becoming a coach?

Geopfert: It's a fun story. I was a sophomore in college and had to declare my major. Halfway through my sophomore year, and I'm always hanging out in the track coaches' office, anyway, and my event coach, Bill Lawson, he was in there, and Chris Bucknam was there, and I had to declare my major, and I was in communications/public relations, and I had my backpack and was standing the doorway, and I said, "Guys, I have to declare a major, what should I do with my life?" Lawson was sitting at his desk, and he asked, "Geopy, do you love track and field?" I said, "Yeah, I love track and field," and he asked, "Do you like what we're doing right now?" I said, "Yeah." He said, "You need to be a track coach." So, then I went to my advisor's office at Northern Iowa and said, "I want to switch my major and not lose any credits and I want to be a track coach." From there on, I studied track and field — articles, books, anything track and field. But the most valuable thing I did was all the track championships, all the NCAAs, Olympic Trials and at the 2000 Olympic Games, I'd find the best athlete and I'd sit by their coach, and I'd strike up conversations with these legendary coaches. The mentorship that I received out of those conversations along the way has been unreal, and it continues.

Fritchen: Now you're going to coach eight athletes at the Paris Olympics.

Geopfert: That's going to be busy — busy. One thing right now, obviously we have the introductory news conference, and then I have to find a house today, and then I'm going get up at 5 a.m. and drive back to Fayetteville. After today, I have to focus on those Olympians through the Olympic Games. These athletes that I'm coaching have been to the Olympics, and they're not there just to participate. We have people that are going to contend for medals. That's what we're trying to do. We're trying to win multiple medals. They're focused on it, and I'm focused on it. It's going to be busy, really busy. It's the most that I've ever had at a world championship. Before, it was five. I thought that was insane. To have eight is a lot. You have different practice venues, different tracks, different times, and those venues aren't close to each other, so there's a lot of moving parts. So, we must get that organized and it's a lot but we're going to go do it, man. We're going to get after it.

Fritchen: You have conference championships, NCAA championships, Olympics. Tell me about recruiting and how you might entice potential student-athletes to further their careers at K-State.

Geopfert: You have to completely understand that relationships are valued above all other things. When you are honest with people, they can see that. If you do what you say, that goes a long way. When you treat people right in recruiting, and within your program, the athletes get better and enjoy that process, then they're your best recruiters. With the success and the athletes you coach, other people come in and have those conversations, people will realize it's a pretty special opportunity within the training group and atmosphere and with the coaching. Doing your best for your current student-athletes filters down and helps the recruiting.

Fritchen: What have you learned most about yourself during your journey?

Geopfert: That I'm very confident in who I am. When I was young and got my first coaching job at Northern Iowa, I got advice that you had to be a little bit more of a hard-you-know-what and all that stuff. There were a couple things I was trying to do that weren't me. I realized over the years that I'm always learning and always willing to continue to learn. You can never stop learning. But I've had enough experiences that I'm confident in who I am and the decisions that I'm going to make, and I'm going to pause, and think about it, and I want to make the decision. So, I think just that confidence from things I've learned over the years from mentors and coaches and colleagues, but also very much from my student-athletes and from the athletes I've coached. As I do things, I really listen to them and get feedback from them and process. Not everybody is the same, so you tweak things a little differently for different people. I've realized to that the gut feeling that you have after doing this so long are these computations in your head going so fast and you go with your gut because it's going to be right.

Kansas State University Athletics

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