Heins Earns First Track and Field Coach of the Year Honor
OGDEN, Utah - The league head
indoor track and field coaches have named Northern Arizona’s
Eric Heins the Big Sky Conference men’s indoor track and
field Coach of the Year.
Heins appreciates the award greatly and knows that without his
coaching staff, capturing this honor would not be possible.
“When you receive a coach of the year honor, I don’t
think it says enough about what the assistant coaches have
done,” Heins said. “Wiley King came here right as the
fall season started and was able to get the sprints, jumps and
relay runners to perform well, and Mo Saatara as usual did a
fantastic job with the throws group. Having Seth Watkins, Sarah
Doyle and Adawale Awosanya on our staff as graduate assistants is
also key to our success. All of the coaches enable our athletes to
perform at their highest levels.”
The Northern Arizona men’s team captured their second
straight indoor title by rallying late to surpass host Montana
State late Saturday afternoon. The final piece of the puzzle was
Javier Villarreal capturing gold in the men’s shot put. This
marks the first indoor title that the Lumberjacks have captured
outside of Flagstaff in 14 years, and first for Heins as Interim
Director of Track and Field & Cross Country.
After the men’s 4x400-meter relay, the Lumberjacks were down
by just over five points and only the shot put remained. Villarreal
shined when it truly mattered for the Lumberjacks and captured his
third shot put title of his career with a toss of 57-8.25.
This is Heins’ first Indoor Coach of the Year honor, but he
was named Cross Country Coach of the Year in the fall of 2009.
Heins, who began his coaching career as an assistant in 2000 at
Indiana, served as a Lumberjack assistant under Ron Mann from
2001-03. After a stint with TCU he returned to Northern Arizona in
2007 to head up the cross country program. In the summer of 2009
Heins was promoted to Interim Director of Track and Field and Cross
Country after the departure of head coach J.W. Hardy.
Sacramento State’s Kathleen Raske won the women’s Big
Sky Conference indoor coach of the year.
