The Northern Illinois track & field team has added Vince Bingham to its staff as an assistant coach, NIU Director of Track & Field/Cross Country Connie Teaberry announced Thursday.
Bingham joins the Huskies after spending last season as the head coach at Neosho County Community College in Chanute, Kan. Prior to working at NCCC, Bingham spent time as a head coach at Missouri Baptist and as an assistant at Kansas, Southern Illinois, Missouri, Lincoln (Mo.) and Lindenwood.
“We are excited to have Vince join our staff,” Teaberry said. “He brings a wealth of knowledge as a coach and a recruiter. Our staff is once again complete and I’m looking forward to the new success Coach Bingham will assist in helping the program reach.”
“The facilities are amazing and, knowing Connie and Greg, I feel like we have a great opportunity to do a really good job here with it being so close to Chicago and in the state of Illinois,” Bingham said. “There are many good athletes in the state of Illinois. The facilities are unbelievable. Where I came from, we had nothing. Now we have everything, so I’m really excited.”
As the head coach as Neosho County in 2012-13, Bingham led the Panthers to a stellar season in both indoor and outdoor competition. NCCC brought home seven All-Americans from the NJCAA national meet in March and followed that up with 11 individual All-Americans at the outdoor national championships. As a team, Bingham’s Panthers placed ninth on the women’s side and eighth in the final men’s standings.
Prior to his stint at NCCC, Bingham served as the Director of Track Operations at national power Kansas from 2009-11. During his two years in Lawrence, he not only helped with the day-to-day operations, but also assisted in helping the Jayhawks place in the top 25 at the NCAA Outdoor Championships. His recruiting efforts also lifted once unranked KU to the 2013 NCAA national outdoor title.
Bingham also found plenty of success as the head coach at Missouri Baptist. In 2006, he led the Spartans to NAIA national titles at both the indoor and outdoor meets in 2006. His team also set eight NAIA national records at the 2006 indoor meet and had 18 of the 21 athletes earn All-American status. At the 2006 outdoor meet, MBU took home eight individual titles. In total, Bingham’s athletes brought home 78 All-American honor on both the men’s and women’s side to help him net the NAIA National Track & Field Coach of the Year Award in 2006. Off the track, MBU had five Academic All-Americans.
In 1998, Bingham was an assistant on Lindenwood’s men’s indoor national championship squad.
All told, Bingham has helped coach 14 different athletes to NAIA championships. Additionally, he has coached five future Olympians in Nickesha Anderson (Jamaica – 2008), Ibrahim Bashir (Kuwait – 2004), Brittany Borman (United States – 2012), Nikki Holder (Canada – 2012) and Randy Lewis (Grenada – 2004 & 2008).
In another move by the coaching staff, the team has added former Huskie Ashley Lucas as a student assistant. Lucas spent one season with NIU’s distance squad after competing the previous four seasons at Lewis University.
"Ashley is a great addition to our staff,” said NIU head cross country and assistant track coach Greg Hipp. “Ashley is going to be a great mentor to our student-athletes and her experiences as a past member of our team are going to be a great help to me and our entire program."