Kyle Gibson will enter his third year as the head coach for Drury’s cross country and track & field programs in 2021-22.
In 2020, Drury's women's cross country team had their best finish in program history at the Great Lakes Valley Conference as the Panthers finished second. Drury had three runners finish in the top 15 and two place in the top 10. There was no NCAA cross country events in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic.
At the 2021 GLVC track & field championships, the DU women's team's seventh place finish marked their best placement since 2013 while the men's team broke a pair of program records at the event.
In 2019, he guided Drury’s first-ever cross country All-American as junior Claire McCune had the best finish in program history coming in 35th overall at the NCAA-II championship in Sacramento, California. McCune was the first Drury women’s runner to compete at the national meet since 2012.
During the indoor track & field season, the Panthers were the conference runner-up in the distance medley relay, and got a third-place at the conference championship from Trevor Johnson the 200-meter dash.
The 2021 outdoor track season will be Gibson’s first at Drury after the 2020 campaign was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Gibson came to DU after three seasons as the assistant track & field and cross country coach at Washburn University in Topeka, Kansas. On the cross country staff, he served as a coach for two All-Americans, four national qualifiers, five all-region selections, and one conference champion. Gibson helped the men's cross country program to an NCAA Regional appearance and a 10th place finish in only their third year of existence. With the track & field program, he mentored two All-Americans, eight provisional NCAA qualifiers, four MIAA champions, 21 conference scorers, a pair of Academic All-Americans, and one USATF Junior National qualifier.
Before he arrived at Washburn, Gibson was an assistant coach at Belmont Abbey College in North Carolina and was the interim head coach throughout one summer. During his time at the NCAA-II program, Belmont Abbey experienced its largest recruiting class in five years. Gibson also helped coach four individual conference champions, including the Conference Carolinas Track & Field Most Valuable Performer in the 2015 Indoor Track & Field championships.
Gibson spent two seasons as a graduate assistant coach at Saint Francis (Pa.) where he was part of the 2013 Northeast Conference Outdoor Track & Field Coaching Staff of the Year for the NCAA-I program. He helped the women's outdoor squad to a second-place finish in the conference and assisted the men's cross country team to their third-place in the NEC, an improvement of six spots from the previous year.
A student-athlete at Saint Francis, Gibson's indoor distance medley relay team won a conference championship in 2011. He was also part of a school-record performance in the outdoor 4x1500 meter relay, and he had a third-place finish in the mile run during the indoor conference championships in 2010.
Gibson earned a degree in Psychology in 2012 from Saint Francis and a Master's degree in Human Resources from the same university in 2014.
