Cross Country Coaching Staff

Ben Welch

 

Head Coach

16th season - Kansas (1986)

Welch enters his 16th year at the helm of the men's and women's cross country teams and 2006 will mark his 5th year as head coach of track & field team.

 

In that time, he has guided the men's team to the NAIA National Cross Country Championships 13 out of the last 15 years, where they have finished in the top-20 ten times and the top-10 seven times, including a second place finish in 2002.  In 2004 they placed 7th out of the 28 team field. In 1993 and 2000 the men placed 6th, in 1994 they finished 8th and 10th in 2001 & 2003. 

En route to the national meet, the men have won two NAIA District II Championships and 11 of the last 13 Cascade Conference titles, earning their coach two NAIA District II, 11 Cascade Conference, and four NAIA Regional Coach of the Year honors. The 2004 season marked the end of a string of 11-consecutive CCC title for the Mountaineer men.

On the women's side, Welch has guided the team near the top of the NAIA cross-country ranks. In 1995, EOU's women's team earned their first national ranking in school history and in 1996 qualified for their first trip to the NAIA National Championships. The 1997, 1998 and 1999 teams all advanced to the national meet where they finished 6th, 9th, and 3rd, respectively. 

Along the way, the team five won consecutive Cascade Conference titles from 1995-1999 which has earned Welch seven conference Coach of the Year awards, one women's conference All-Sport award, and one NAIA National Coach of the Year honors. 

In 2004, the women finished 16th at the NAIA National Championships after a second-place finish in the conference that earned Welch his sixth CCC Coach of the Year award.  They then followed that up with a Conference title, and another Conference Coach of the Year award and a 22nd place National finish in '05. 

On the track, both the men and women have set over 22 school records, rewritten EOU's top-five performance lists, qualified over 80 athletes for the NAIA Indoor and Outdoor National Championships, and have finished either first -'03- or second -'04, '05 & '06- at the men's Cascade Conference meet and in '06 finished a historic 2nd on the women's side.

Welch has seen his Cross Country runners earn 18 performance All-American honors, 10  Academic All-American honors, and five men's and four women's Academic Team Awards in cross country, including the top men's team academic award in '01.

 

Prior to coming to EOU, Welch spent three years as the men's cross country and track coach at Highline Community College in Des Moines, Washington and two years at the University of Kansas in Lawrence as a student assistant cross country and track coach.

Welch and his wife Talia have three children: Amanda, Nick, and Bennett."

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