Jamie Moreno will enter his third season as Drury University’s head coach for men’s and women’s cross country in 2018 and his fourth year as DU’s men’s and women’s head track & field coach in 2018-19.
The native of Independence, Missouri took over as head coach to the four programs December 9, 2015.
In 2017-18, Moreno saw several student-athletes break through for success not seen at Drury in many years. Women's cross country runner Claire McCune became the first runner in program history to win the Great Lakes Valley Conference championship and did so as a freshman. She was the league's Runner of the Year and the Newcomer/Freshman of the Year. In the spring, men's athlete Chaaz Cooper-Ferguson won a GLVC outdoor track & field title in the 400 meter hurdles becoming the first Drury men's participant in six years to win a league championship.
In Moreno’s first season as cross country coach at Drury, the Panthers women’s squad improved their finish at the Great Lakes Valley Conference meet by five places improving from 12th in 2015 to a seventh place finish in 2016. His women's squad improved again in 2017 to finish sixth.
He has also managed to grow and develop the track & field rosters. The men’s and women’s teams had just 22 combined participants prior to Moreno’s arrival and grew to 34 student-athletes just a year later.
While his rosters have grown, both teams’ academic success has grown as well. In 2017, the Drury men’s track & field squad posted the best grade point average in the nation among NCAA-II programs with a 3.459 GPA. The DU women’s squad was third best nationally with a 3.63 grade point average in 2017.
Moreno came to Drury after two years as the head cross country coach and track & field head coach at NCAA-II Northwood (Mich.) University. He spent four years (2008-2012) at Florida Southern (NCAA-II) where he built upon a tradition rich cross country program and started the college’s first track and field teams. He guided the men’s cross country team to three Sunshine State Conference championships, qualified for the NCAA-II national meet in 2008 and 2010, and led the women’s cross country team to a pair of second place conference finishes.
Before his time at Florida Southern, Moreno started the cross country and track teams at William Woods (NAIA) in Fulton, Missouri, where his teams won three women's cross country titles in the American Midwest Conference and one men’s conference championship. He was named Coach of the Year in the AMC three times.
Moreno had a pair of stints as an assistant coach at his alma mater, the University of Central Missouri, from 2000-04 and again in the 2012-13 season. He began his coaching career at the high school level at Warrensburg High from 1995-2003, serving as head cross country and assistant track coach, a period highlighted by his girls’ team capturing a state championship in 2003 and his boys squad finishing second in 2000.
As an intercollegiate athlete at UCM, Moreno was a four-year letterman in both cross country and track, claiming All-MIAA honors 10 times in his career. He was a member of a 1993 Mules squad that finished fifth nationally in cross country and later was inducted into the school's Athletic Hall of Fame.
Moreno earned his degree in Business Administration-Management from Central Missouri in December of 1994. He also earned his Master's degree in Educational Technology from UCM in August of 2001.
