Senior Track and Field Captain Rachel Payne was preparing to step on the track when her teammate told her the news.
Her coach, 55-year-old Brent Chumbley, had died unexpectedly the night prior.
While most of the team was with each other in Bowling Green on Jan. 31, Payne and three of her teammates were in Louisville preparing for a meet that day. The coaches who traveled to the meet offered to let the crew sit out – but they refused.
“We thought that coach would want us to continue,” Payne said. “Even if the performance wasn’t the best, he would still want us to try.”
When Payne began the competition, she ran a 10.87 time in the 60-meter hurdles, the slowest in her track career.
However, when Payne got to the shot put – one of Chumbley’s specialties – she threw a personal record of 9.16 meters.
“I know he was with me,” Payne said.
For six years, Chumbley was the director of WKU Track & Field/Cross Country. This season, he coached 73 athletes, and Payne said he was there for every single one of them.
“(He’s) not even just a head coach, but really a parent to all of us,” said Garrett Steed, a runner on both cross country and track and field.
Steed’s teammates felt the same about Chumbley.
“I just knew, whatever it was, I could go talk to him, and he didn’t have to be my coach in that instance,” graduate student thrower Kaison Barton said. “He could be somebody like a father.”
Athletes know how to find motivation in unexpected places. Scott York, the director of TopCare, an on-campus program that offers sports psychology to anyone involved with WKU Athletics, said athletes are “wired” to find motivation from anywhere to help them compete.
York said losing Chumbley is “an avenue” for the track team to turn their pain and grief into something positive.
Although there is no exact playbook for grieving, York said, finding a “purpose” is a necessary action within the five stages of grief.
“For our athletes, maybe it’s a little bit easier,” York said. “Competition can become their purpose.”
While athletes grieve like anyone else, York said the main difference athletes have is a “built-in support system” – their team.
“I’m extremely, extremely proud of our team for the support that we’ve shown one another, the support we’ve shown for the family and kind of being everybody’s shoulder to cry on,” Barton said.
WKU has four meets left in its 2025 spring season, and Barton said rather than bringing the team down, the Hilltoppers are using Chumbley’s death to drive the rest of the season.
“It’s become our biggest motivator as a team to prove ourselves that we’re dedicated and that we are going to make the best out of a very unfortunate circumstance,” Barton said.
Barton built a close bond with Chumbley, who was his personal coach. Barton said he hopes Chumbley’s love for WKU is remembered most of all.
“The love that he had for Western Kentucky University was unmatched,” Barton said. “He loved being able to call himself a Hilltopper.”
Barton’s career on the Hill has been successful, but he still has one major goal in mind – immortalizing Chumbley.
Barton currently holds the second-best marks in indoor weight throw and outdoor hammer throw. He said breaking both those records is something he and Chumbley aimed to accomplish heading into the season.
“My biggest motivation is to get those records,” Barton said. “Because not only will my name be in the record books, but it would be my name which is coached by Coach Chumbley.”
