Dave Wrath, Augustana Sports Information
ROCK ISLAND, Ill. -- David Thompson, a former College Conference of Illinois & Wisconsin track athlete and assistant coach at Augustana, has been named as the successor to Fred Whiteside as the Viking women’s track & field and cross country head coach.
Whiteside is retiring at the end of the 2014-15 academic year after 33 seasons at the helm of women’s cross country and 28 years leading the women’s track & field program.
Thompson, who was an assistant under Whiteside from 2003 to 2007, returns to Augustana after two seasons as the men’s head track & field coach at Williams University in Williamstown, Massachusetts.
In 2014, Thompson’s Ephs had five outdoor national qualifiers in seven events—two of which achieved All-America honors—and took down three school records. His 2014 squad also placed fourth in a 35-team field at the Indoor Division III New England Championship and finished fourth at the NESCAC Championships. In addition, with a cumulative grade point average of 3.35, Williams was named a USTFCCCA All-Academic team.
During the 2015 indoor season, Thompson led the Ephs to a third-place finish among 35 teams at the Indoor Division III New England Championship. Williams also had four national qualifiers and broke three school records this winter.
Thompson is a 1999 graduate of North Central College in Naperville, Illinois and is currently pursuing his master’s degree in sports management at Western Illinois University. While competing for the Cardinals, he was an 11-time All-American and three-time national champion. He won the 1997 indoor long jump title with a mark of 24’ 1¾” and the 1998 outdoor 200 meter championship in :21.41. He was also a member of North Central’s national champion 4x100 relay outdoors in 1998. Through the 2014 season, he was still a school record holder in the outdoor 100 (:10.56) and 200 (:21.25) as well as the 4x100 relay (:40.78).
In his first stint at Augustana, Thompson served as an assistant for Whiteside, coaching sprints and jumps. His athletes broke three school records and set three national qualifying marks.
In November of 2006, Thompson was named men’s and women’s track & field and cross country head coach at Ashford University in Clinton, Iowa. While there, his athletes set over 20 school records and he had seven indoor conference champions and two indoor national qualifiers.
From 2008 to 2011, Thompson was the head track & field coach for both the men’ and women’s teams at Dubuque University in Dubuque, Iowa, where he had a national indoor champion in the 55 meters. Prior to moving to Williams, he was the women’s and men’s head coach for track & field at the State University of New York at Oswego, where his athletes broke 12 school records and won two SUNYAC championships.
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The College Conference of Illinois & Wisconsin (CCIW) was founded in 1946 and currently services eight member institutions including Augustana College (Rock Island, IL), Carthage College (Kenosha, WI), Elmhurst College (Elmhurst, IL), Illinois Wesleyan University (Bloomington, IL), Millikin University (Decatur, IL), North Central College (Naperville, IL), North Park University (Chicago, IL) and Wheaton College (Wheaton, IL). During the 2013-14 academic year, the CCIW honored over 1,400 academic all-conference recipients, 14 CoSIDA Academic All-Americans, 33 CoSIDA Academic All-District recipients and 87 all-Americans.