Scott Slade

Scott Slade

  • Title
    Head Coach
  • 30 Years of Coaching Experience
  • From 2014-2018, was an assistant coach for Texas Elite Track Club, and he helped three women qualify for the 2016 Olympic Trials
  • 2013 Conference USA Women's Cross Country Coach of the Year
  • Team USA staff coach at the 2012 NACAC Championships and 2015 World Relay Championships
Scott Slade is in his first year in 2017-18 as the head coach of the UIS cross country/track and field programs. He brings 30 years of coaching experience to the Prairie Stars programs.

For the last four years, Slade has been an assistant coach for the Texas Elite Track Club in San Antonio, Texas. The Texas Elite Track Club works with a group of post-collegiate elite and emerging elite middle-distance runners who are working toward representing Team USA at the Olympics and World Championships. Three Texas Elite women qualified for the 2016 Olympic Trials.
 
Slade was the Associate Head Coach at the University of Texas San Antonio from 2006-2014, including being responsible for all aspects of the men’s and women’s cross country teams. His final women’s cross country team in 2013 won the Conference USA Championship, and Slade was named the Conference USA Coach of the Year. His men’s and women’s cross country teams also had six top-three finishes while he was in charge of the program. Slade also played a big role in the Roadrunners winning six indoor and four outdoor track and field conference championships.
 
From 1991-2006, Slade was the head coach for cross country and track and field at two different universities. For the first 12 years, he was the head coach at Plattsburgh State University in New York, and he then took over as the head coach at Soka University for three seasons. At Plattsburgh, he was a four-time NCAA Atlantic Region Coach of the Year and two-time SUNYAC Coach of the Year selection. Slade started the cross country and track and field programs at Soka.
 
Slade began his coaching career as an assistant at RIT (1989-1991) and Adams State College (1988-89). In his two years at NCAA Division II Adams State, he served under legendary distance coach Dr. Joe Vigil. He helped Adams State win the 1988 and 1989 NCAA National Championships, and helped coach athletes to 41 distance All-American honors.
 
Slade is also heavily involved in USA Track and Field. He was the assistant women’s distance coach at the 2015 World Relay Championships. At that event, TEAM USA set the American Record in the 4x800 and the World Record in the distance medley. In 2012, he was the women’s distance coach  for TEAM USA at the NACAC Track and Field Championships in Guanajuato, Mexico, where 11 of his 12 athletes won medals.
 
Slade earned his bachelor’s of science in exercise science in 1987 from the State University of New York at Buffalo. In 1989, he earned his master’s of arts in physical education from Adams State.
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