Curtis Collier to leave coaching at 2009 season end
4/2/2009 1:00:00 AM | Athletics
Curtis Collier, head track and field/cross country coach for Sam Houston State University the past six years, is stepping down at the end of the 2009 season to step into an administrative role for the Bearkat athletic department.
Collier will become compliance coordinator for Sam Houston, replacing John Holder who had been promoted to administrative coordinator for the Bearkats SHSU director of athletics Bobby Williams has announced.
Holder will assist associate athletic director finance Bobbie Hilliard with budget preparation and implementation. Holder has worked with athletic administration since 1997 and has been compliance coordinator since 2003.
Collier has served as head coach since June 2003,developing the track and field program into one
of the most successful in the University's history.Sam Houston has won seven Southland Conference team championships, finished as SLC runner-up six times and had two third place finishes in indoor and outdoor track and field and cross country.
“Working with the quality young men and women who comprise our track and field program truly has been an honor and a pleasure,” Collier said. “But with a wife and two young boys, it's time to get off the road and have a job where I can spend more time with my family. Sam Houston State gave me a great opportunity as a coach here. It's been a tremendous experience. I look forward to the new challenge and thank everyone for their support.”
Bearkat track and field won the Southland men's outdoor championship in 2005 and 2006, the women's indoor crown in 2007 and 2008 and the women's outdoor trophy in 2005, 2006 and 2008.
Collier was recognized as Southland Conference “Coach of the Year” six times. He is the only Southland coach to win “Coach of the Year” honors for both men's and women's outdoor track and field in back-to-back seasons. Only once before in the 34-year history of the awards has one coach received the honor for both men's and women's outdoor track and field in a single year.
“Curtis Collier has done an outstanding job heading up our track and field program. Certainly, track and field has become one of our premier sports and played an important role with our overall success as a department in winning three consecutive Southland Commissioner's Cups,” Williams said. “Administratively, we're in a win-win situation. We've promoted John Holder into a new role as administrative coordinator and moved Curtis into compliance where he will continue to keep the high standards for that department that John achieved.
“Our search for a new track and field head coach will begin immediately. We will be looking at both external and internal candidates.”
Since 2003, Sam Houston State has produced 29 individual champions in Southland indoor track and field with 47 student-athletes earning All-SLC honors a total of 84 times. Outdoors, the Bearkats have won 43 individual league titles with 65 Kats earning all-league recognition a total of 155 times.
Serving as assistant coach at SHSU for two years before becoming head coach in June 2003, Collier has been part of a Sam Houston program that has set 60 of the 93 outdoor and indoor records on the books for Sam Houston State.
Collier holds Master's degrees from Utah State and UTEP. He earned his Bachelor's Degree from Texas A&M where he was a member of the track and field team. His wife, Charlotte, is a native of Denmark and a former Danish national record holder in the hammer. The pair are the parents of two sons, Lukas Christopher, born in June 2006, and Niklas Gordon, born in February, 2008
Holder is a 1996 graduate of Sam Houston State with a bachelor of business administration degree. He received his Masters from SHSU in 2000. He first joined the Sam Houston athletic staff as a manager for the Bearkat baseball team. He is a 1991 graduate of Lumberton High School.
