Eric Houle continues in his 31st year leading a nationally competitive program at Southern Utah University. When Coach Houle originally came to this small Division I program set in a beautiful town of 30,000, no SUU cross country or track and field team had ever won a conference title. Now, 47 conference titles later, the program is one of the best in the country, achieving success that is normally reserved for schools of size, resources, and history. What’s more, Houle’s expertise extends beyond the conference level. His athletes compete at the regional, national, and international levels on a regular basis gaining experience in countries such as Canada, Russia, Great Britain, and Hungry. This includes multiple World Track and Field Championship appearances, as well as appearances at the 2012, 2016, and 2020 Olympic Games. Due to these accomplishments, Houle’s program has been featured in national and international track and field articles and magazines. It’s no secret that the Thunderbirds have excelled under the direction of Houle, collecting 41 Conference Coach of the Year 41 awards and an NCAA First Mountain Region Coach of the Year.
Now in 2023, Houle has coached 1232 All-Conference Athletes and 404 Individual Conference Championships. His teams have obtained 42 Team Conference Championships, 34 Team Conference Runner-ups, an NCAA Mountain Region Championship, and nine team qualifiers to the NCAA National Championships. He has coached 51 conference Athletes of the year, 30 NCAA All-Americans, two Individual National Champions (5,000m & 10,000m), a 2012 Bowerman Award Winner (Cam Levins),156 NCAA First round National Qualifiers, and 30 Newcomers of the Year.
While in the Big Sky
Now entering a new era in the Western Athletic Conference, Houle closes a historic tenure in the Big Sky conference where his expertise and leadership led to Southern Utah solidifying itself as a national powerhouse in Track and Field and Cross Country.
Since 2013, Southern Utah has qualified for the cross-country NCAA Team national championships seven times, won four Big Sky conference championships, and compiled nine championship runner-ups. Houle has coached 275 total All-conference athletes, 66 regional qualifiers, and 58 Big Sky All-academic athletes.
Three Outstanding Performances
In the 2020 season, SUU men’s cross country achieved an amazing accomplishment by knocking off defending national champions NAU to win the conference championship and finish the season as the No.9 ranked team in the country.
Another incredible accomplishment came during the men’s outdoor track and field season in 2019. Houle’s team knocked off the No. 12 nationally-ranked NAU Lumberjacks by a narrow margin of 1.3 points to win the conference championship while qualifying several athletes for the national championships.
Southern Utah’s women’s cross country team claimed its first Big Sky Championship Title in 2018 after fending off the NAU Lumberjacks and the Weber State Wildcats. The Thunderbirds ran a composed team race and earned four of the top six finishes to win the championship and later qualify for the NCAA National Championships. This finish paved the way for women’s teams on this campus as this team was the first in school history to qualify for an NCAA National postseason tournament.
Total Big Sky Achievements
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275 All conference athletes
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Men’s cross country has placed inside the top five every single season since 2012
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66 NCAA regional qualifiers
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24 NCAA qualifiers
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Four Big Sky Conference Championships
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Seven national team qualifiers
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58 All-American academic
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Three Big Sky scholar-athletes of the year
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22 national appearances.
Houle has influenced the development of multiple nationally recognized athletes, including one of the world’s top trail runners, Hayden Hawks. After concluding a sensational career in Cedar City in 2016, Hawks qualified for the USA National Mountain Running Team before winning the Speedgoat 50k in 2017, which is known worldwide as one of the toughest in North America. In 2022, Hawks achieved another incredible feat taking second place in the 103k Tarawera Ultramarathon by UTMB, in Rotura, New Zealand.
Cam Levins went on to become SUU’s first Olympian when he ran at the 2012 London Olympic Games in both the 5,000m and 10,000m. At the Olympic Games, in the 5,000m trials, Levins’s performance put him in an elite group as his performance in the first round became the fastest trial ever run for that distance in the history of the Olympic Games. Later that year, he went on to win the highest honor in collegiate track and field as he won the prestigious Bowerman Award, placing a Southern Utah athlete as one of the all-time greatest athletes in the history of the NCAA. Southern Utah University is one of the smallest Division I institutions, and the only one in the state of Utah, to ever win this distinguished award. This event cemented Houle’s program as one of the tops for developing athletes in the collegiate ranks. Levins received a contract from Nike and now trains with the Nike Project team. In 2023, Levins now owns four of the top six times in Canadian Marathon history and qualified for the 2024 Paris Olympic Games, where he is poised to compete for a medal and run a time near 2:05.
On top of Levin's accomplishments, former Thunderbirds Mike Tate, Aidan Reed, and Slyvia Bedford have all gone on to achieve tremendous feats in distance running at the national level.
Mike Tate has become one of Canada’s most dominant distance runners. In 2019 he won the 10,000-meter Canadian cross-country championships and a bronze medal in the 1500-meter at the Canadian Track and Field Championships. Now two years later, he will defend that cross-country title at the 2023 Championships in Ontario.
During his sophomore year in 2017, Aidan Reed represented the United States taking second place in the 10,000-meter run at the Junior Pan American in Limu, Peru. Reed ran a blazing time of 32:10.15 and only trailed his first-place USA teammate by half a second. He recently ran in a USA regional qualifier at the JSera Catholic High School, where he ran a season-best 28:27.40.
Following a stellar collegiate tenure in cross country and on the track, Sylvia Bedford has now put together an incredible resume in Marathon running. Bedford won the St. George Marathon for two consecutive years in 2018 and 2019, where she dominated the rest of her competition and broke the longstanding course record. This finish qualified her for the 2020 USA Olympic Marathon Trials, where she finished inside the top 35. Bedford has also found a passion for coaching distance athletes as she’s been a coach at the Nike Wasatch Academy Running Camp for three years.
Houle’s program first reached national prominence in 1999 when the Thunderbirds knocked out five nationally ranked teams to win the NCAA Mountain Regional Cross Country Championship. In this process, the Thunderbird men broke the six-title streak won by the national powerhouse Colorado, a challenging feat that only one other team in the state of Utah has accomplished to date. This win put the Thunderbirds in the national limelight, catapulting them into the national rankings for the first time in the history of the program. This also earned Southern Utah University its first NCAA Division 1 Championship appearance where the team finished 21st in the country. That year Houle’s efforts garnered him the NCAA’s Mountain Regional Coach of the Year award, and the Championship victory ushered in a new era of achievement by Southern Utah athletes. Notably, All-American Jess Baumgartner broke through at the NCAA Cross Country Championships to finish in third place, opening the door for Cam Levins, who followed up with a fourth-place finish and a pair of National titles.
Distance athletes at SUU are second to none when it comes to development. Sharla Platt Manuele, a 5:30 miler out of high school, improved her mile by 51 seconds and was running a 4:39 mile at SUU. Manuele became an All-American both on the track and in the classroom. Cam Levins began as a 4:18 miler out of high school. Levins brought home Southern Utah’s first Division 1 national title in any sport at SUU, with victories in both the 5,000m and 10,000m at the NCAA Outdoor National Championships. His times in both the 5,000m and 10,000m are now among the top 5 all-time best performances in NCAA history.
Now decades later, the Thunderbirds have continued to see loads of success from their distance athletes. Angie Nickerson won five total Big Sky Championships, two in Cross Country and the 10,000-meter, 5,000-meter, and 3,000-meter. Nickerson earned four all-conference Athletes of the Year and led the way for the 2018 Cross Country NCAA National Championship qualifying team.
Alison Pray became the first female distance runner in SUU Cross Country history to achieve First Team All-American honors, finishing 20th at the 2021 NCAA National Championships in Florida. Pray claimed two Big Sky conference titles in the Indoor Track and Field season, winning the 3,000 meters and the mile.
Nate Osterstock claimed two Big Sky titles in the mile while inking his name into second place all-time in the Indoor mile. Osterstock also finished 13th in the entire country in the mile at the NCAA Indoor Track and Field Nationals in 2021.
Houle is grateful to have great assistant coaches that helped develop several elite throwers, sprinters, and jumpers.
Kayla Kovar has led all throwers throughout Southern Utah’s track and field history. In her career, Kovar recorded a plethora of phenomenal accolades, garnering four Second-Team All-American honors while being named Mountain Region Women’s Field Athlete of the Year in 2014 by the USTFCCCA. Kovar is the only Thunderbird to qualify for three different events at the NCAA Nationals. Kayla won two Outdoor Big Sky Conference Championships in the discus and the hammer throw and three Summitt League Championships in the hammer, discus, and shot put. She also still holds three outdoor school records in the shot put (53’ 6 1/2”), hammer throw (216’9”), and discus throw (178’1”).
On the track, the sprinters have experienced enormous improvements while at Southern Utah University. A major breakthrough took place when All-American Natalie Gibson, a 46.5 300m hurdler just out of high school, qualified for the NCAA National Championships. Gibson placed 9th with a time of 57.7 in the 400m hurdles, a time that still stands as a record and a performance that would be competitive by today’s standards at the national level.
In 1983, Will James blistered to a now 40-year long-standing record in the 100 meters (10.31) for the Thunderbirds. His son Tre James followed in his father's footsteps decades later and pieced together one of the most memorable careers in Southern Utah Track history. Tre collected three Big Sky Championships in the 60-meter, 100-meter, and 200-meter races. In 2018, James qualified for the NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships, where he ran a rapid 200-meter to claim 24th in the nation. He still holds the SUU school record in the 60-meter, indoor 200-meter, and outdoor 200-meter.
Preston Myers was the epitome of grit on the track for the Thunderbirds. Myers dealt with setbacks in his career but persevered to achieve his dream of representing Southern Utah University Track and showing what a student-athlete can achieve in the right program. He and his teammate Shaun Murray helped the Thunderbirds establish a sense of power in the Big Sky upon entering the conference in 2012. Myers arrived in Cedar City with a personal best time of 11.1 in the 100 meters and rapidly improved to 10.4 during his time at SUU. Throughout his career, Myers earned three all-Big Sky conference honors in outdoor events before competing at the NCAA West Regionals in the 100-meter and 200-meter dash in 2013. He also won the 2013 Big Sky Indoor Championship in the 200 meters and two titles in the 2012 Summit League Outdoor Championships in the 100 and 200 meters.
Elizabeth White compiled a historic career in the long jump for the Thunderbirds. White shattered the indoor school record with a leap of 19”9 ¾’ and the outdoor school record with 20”4’ while winning the conference championship in both seasons. During the outdoor season, White qualified for the NCAA Track and Field Championships and leaped to a distinctive mark of 20”3’, earning 15th in the country and Second Team All-American Honors.
The Thunderbirds started accruing conference titles early on in Houle’s career at SUU, setting the standards of achievement in the program high. The men’s teams, to date, have won a combined 19 conference titles including a Triple Crown (winning XC, indoor, and outdoor championships all in one year) and 19 team runner-ups. The women have established themselves just as powerfully in conference championships by winning 19 conference championships, three Triple Crowns, and 15 runner-ups. Individuals from these teams have moved on to represent SUU on NCAA Regional, National, and International stages. The highest national placing for the men’s team was in the 2012 season when the men’s team finished 11th out of 320 Division 1 teams at the NCAA National Championships for indoor and outdoor track and field. These accomplishments are some of many achieved by Houle’s athletes and teams during his tenure at Southern Utah University.
The impressive success of Houle’s athletes follows them off of the track and into the classroom as they continue to maintain a record of outstanding performance as university students. These athletes compete all year long with no off-season, most with part-time jobs, their success is unmatched. Houle promotes a philosophy that track & field is only a precursor of a more important arena that lies in the future. He has led 1617 Academic All-Conference Athletes of the Year Citations, 74 Academic All-Americans, and 12 Scholar Athletes of the Year. Most recently, in 2023, the SUU’s women’s track team recorded a 3.91 GPA, ranking second in the entire country.
Academic Achievements Under Coach Houle:
- Houle’s team finished in the top 20 percent every year academically, with the 2023 women’s team compiling a 3.91 GPA, ranking second in the country.
- 885 Academic All-Conference Athletes
- 120 USTFCCCA Academic All Americans
- 16 Conference Scholar Athletes of the Year (Throughout Four Conferences
Coaching Cross Country and Track & Field runs in the Houle family. Coach Houle's nephew, Nate Houle, is the head distance coach at Idaho State. His younger brother, Scott Houle, is the head coach at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah. Older brother Dave Houle was an inductee to the National High School Hall of Fame for coaching in the year 2000. An interesting fact that year, Dave Houle was inducted the same year as Steve Prefontaine, one of the most admired Olympic distance runners in American history.
Houle graduated with undergraduate degrees in Communications and Physical Education, before going on to receive a Master’s Degree in Secondary Education from Southern Utah University. He began his coaching career at Salt Lake City’s Judge Memorial High School. In eight seasons at JMHS, Houle’s cross country team won 10 region team championships, five team state runner-ups, and three state championships where no JMHS cross country team had ever won a region or state championship. Houle is married to his college sweetheart, Diane, and they have two sons, Deric and Nicholas. Houle has been inducted into the Utah Summer Games Hall of Honor, the Southern Utah University Coaching Factory Hall of Fame, and has received the University Board of Trustee Award, all in recognition of his career and coaching accomplishments.
