USTFCCCA Awards
Duane Vandenbusche Announced as New Namesake for NCAA DII Women’s Cross Country Coach of the Year
By Kyle Terwillegar, USTFCCCA November 17, 2016   

Duane Vandenbusche Announced as New Namesake for NCAA DII Women’s Cross Country Coach of the Year

NEW ORLEANS – The U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association is proud to announce former Western State coach and USTFCCCA Hall of Fame member Duane Vandenbusche as the namesake for the NCAA Division II Women’s Cross Country Coach of the Year Award.

Effective this current 2016 season, the Duane Vandenbusche Women’s Coach of the Year Award will annually honor the most outstanding coach of a women’s team in NCAA Division II Cross Country. The NCAA Division II Cross Country Women’s Coach of the Year award has been administered by the USTFCCCA since the association’s formation in 2005.

“Duane Vandenbusche’s resume as a coach who excelled at guiding both teams and individuals to national titles is paralleled by a very select few,” USTFCCCA CEO Sam Seemes said. “A history professor by trade, Coach Vandenbusche made history of his own while building a cross country powerhouse at Western State, and we’re very proud to link our award to his outstanding legacy.”

Few might have guessed at the outstanding career that would follow when Duane Vandenbusche, then a history professor at Western State, began working with a struggling Mountaineer track & field program in 1972. Three years later, Vandenbusche took the reins of the cross country and track & field program and began to build a national powerhouse.

By the time Vandenbusche retired in 2007, the Mountaineer men and women had won 12 national team titles in cross country (10 NCAA Division II and two NAIA), captured 51 individual national championships in track & field and cross country, and earned over 300 All-American honors. Vandenbusche earned a total of seven National Coach of the Year honors over the course of his career at Western State.

During his tenure, he coached five individual NCAA DII women’s champions – more than any other school in the country.

The Duane Vandenbusche Women’s Coach of the Year Award is one of four newly named national awards for NCAA Division II Cross Country: