Auburn promotes Ken Harnden to track and field coach: Here's why Harnden was Auburn's best bet at keeping its momentum rolling
Leroy Burrell was the head coach at the front of Auburn's recent track and field success, but it was Harnden who worked most closely with Auburn's most successful track stars.
Auburn has promoted Ken Harnden to head coach of its track and field program, the school announced Monday morning.
Harnden just completed his fourth season on Auburn’s staff as sprints coach, and, this past season, he was the coach who worked most closely with national champions Ja’Kobe Tharp and Kayinsola Ajayi.
He has also been the architect of Auburn’s 4x100-meter relay team, which won at nationals two years in a row in 2024 and 2025 and which set an NCAA record in the preliminaries of this year’s national meet before falling in the final.
Harnden for three years running has earned national Assistant Coach of the Year honors for men from the USTFCCCA.
Ajayi wrote ‘IN KEN WE TRUST’ on the back of his bib before the SEC Indoor Championships this spring — then flashed it to the broadcast camera after winning the conference 60-meter dash title and equaling an NCAA record time in the process.
It’s been the motto of several Auburn sprinters that have found huge success at Auburn in recent seasons: Now, it may as well be the motto of the entire track and field program.
Harnden replaces former head coach Leroy Burrell, who served as Auburn head coach for four seasons before his departure last week to Texas A&M.
“We trust in him, like, ‘OK, if Coach Ken said do this, then if you do that, trust me, everything is going to work out good for you,’” Ajayi said, back in March shortly after the SEC Indoor Championships. “If you trust in him and believe in him — then, yeah.
“If he tells me, ‘OK, Ajayi, do this,’ and then I do that, then everything is going to go perfect for me.”
That proved true enough this season for Ajayi: