Since becoming Sam Houston State track and field head coach in June 2003, Curtis Collier has developed the program into one of the most successful in the University’s history.
In his five seasons as Bearkat head coach, Collier has directed Sam Houston to seven Southland Conference team championships, six runner-up finishes and two third place finishes in indoor and outdoor track and field and cross country.
Sam Houston State 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.
The Bearkats won their five outdoor titles by an average of 38.5 points.
Collier has been 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.
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.
In his 27 years of coaching, Collier has tutored three Olympians, 24 intercollegiate All-Americans, 85 NCAA national qualifiers, 147 individual conference champions, 20 conference championship teams (eight men, 12 women), and one national championship relay team. Collier is a USA Track & Field Level III Certified Coach and also serves as a Level I instructor. At Sam Houston State, Collier has produced three of the Bearkats’ four All-Americans. He was named as NCAA regional women’s outdoor track and field coach of the year in 2005.
Collier came to Sam Houston State from Utah State where he served for 15 years as assistant coach and, eventually, associate head coach. He was an assistant for two years at Texas-El Paso and served four years on active duty in the U. S. Army, where he coached the Women’s All-Army team to its first interservice championship. 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.
Curtis’s 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
