McGuire Named Great Lakes Region Coach of the Year
11/14/2017 3:58:00 PM | Women's Cross Country
NEW ORLEANS, La. -- For the third year in a row, and the sixth time in the last seven, University of Michigan women's cross country head coach Mike McGuire on Tuesday (Nov. 14) was named the Great Lakes Regional Women's Coach of the Year for the 2017 cross country season by the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA).
McGuire, in his 26th season at the helm of the Michigan women's distance program, was chosen as the winner of the award by a vote of his peers from the 31 institutions represented in the Great Lakes Region.
As the region's top women's coach, he will be honored at the pre-NCAA Cross Country Championships banquet this Thursday (Nov. 16) in Louisville, Kentucky, ahead of the championship race on Saturday (Nov. 18) at 10:45 a.m.
This marks the 11th time in his career that McGuire has earned Regional Coach of the Year honors, to go along with 12 Big Ten Coach of the Year honors. Including this season, he has swept the two coaching awards nine times in his career.
His No. 8-ranked Wolverine women are heading back to the NCAA Championships for the 16th consecutive year, marking the third-longest active qualifying streak in the nation behind Stanford and Michigan State.
This year's squad advanced to nationals after winning the NCAA Great Lakes Regional with 71 points to Michigan State's 87, led by individual runner-up and third-place finishers Gina Sereno and Jamie Morrissey.
Morrissey and Sereno were third and fourth individually at the Big Ten Championships to lead the Wolverines to back-to-back conference titles to close out October. It marked the first string of consecutive titles for Michigan since five-in-a-row from 2002-06, powered not only by the two redshirt seniors up front, but also five total runners in the top-20.
McGuire and the Wolverines will finish their season this Saturday with the NCAA Cross Country Championships at the E.P. "Tom" Sawyer State Park in Louisville. The women's race goes off at 10:45 a.m., followed by the men's race at 11:45 a.m. Both meets can be streamed live with a Flotrack Pro subscription, and fans can follow the meet with live results from Record Timing and social media updates from @UMichTrack on Twitter and Instagram.
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