Coaching Staff

Head Coach Eric Houle

Fifteen-time Mid-Continent Conference and 1999 NCAA Mountain Regional Coach of the Year Eric Houle is in his 12th season as head track and field and cross country coach at Southern Utah University. Since his arrival at SUU in 1992, the Thunderbirds have won 20 conference championships, including 19 Mid-Con titles (12 in cross country), an American West title and one NCAA Mountain Regional championship. In addition, Houle has coached 127 individual conference champions, 11 conference athletes of the year, 10 conference newcomers of the year, 19 NCAA qualifiers and one NCAA All-American since the T-Birds joined the Mid-Con in 1997.

This past fall Houle led the Thunderbirds to their fifth Mid-Continent Conference cross country title sweep in six years. The SUU women took home their sixth-straight Mid-Con crown overall, while the T-Bird men won for the sixth time in seven tries. In the 2002-03 season, Houle guided the SUU women to three conference championships to pull off the program’s second Mid-Con “Triple Crown” in the last three seasons with a sweep of the cross country and indoor and outdoor track titles. The women’s cross country team matched the feat set a year earlier by the SUU men in claiming its fifth-straight Mid-Con crown overall, while the men saw their five-year reign end with a second-place conference showing and placed second and third in the indoor and outdoor seasons, respectively.

In 1999, Houle led the Thunderbird men to their first-ever NCAA Mountain Division Cross Country Championship, stopping a streak of six-straight titles won by nationally-ranked Colorado, as well as knocking off four other nationally-ranked teams. The win put the Thunderbirds into the national rankings for the first time ever (#11 overall) and earned them their first-ever berth to the NCAA Championships, where SUU placed 21st overall. Houle’s efforts garnered him NCAA Regional Coach of the Year honors.

On the track, the Thunderbirds have been just as dominant, winning seven conference championships, while finishing second in 14 other Mid-Con meets and third three times. In June of 1999, Natalie Gibson became SUU’s first-ever track NCAA All-American, competing in the 400-meter hurdles at the NCAA Outdoor Championships in Boise, Idaho. In addition, school records have been set or re-set 175 times over the past seven years, including 12 records last season.

Houle graduated with two Bachelor’s degrees from SUU – in physical education and communication – in 1981, and a Master’s degree in secondary education in 1998. Houle began his head coaching career in 1982 at Salt Lake City's Judge Memorial High School. In seven seasons at JMHS, Houle’s cross country and track and field teams won 14 region and five state championships and five runner-up finishes.

Houle and his wife Diane are the parents of two grown sons, Derick and Nick, and reside in Cedar City.