Staff Profiles
Eric Heins
@NAUHeins
Eric Heins is in his sixth season as the head coach of the cross country teams at Northern Arizona University, and third year as the Director of Track & Field and Cross Country. He has won 11 Big Sky Championships and produced six top-10 national finishes in his first three seasons at NAU. In his five years since returning to Flagstaff, Heins has been named coach of the year by the Big Sky Conference 10 times, including a trio of honors from the 2011-12 seasons thanks to the Lumberjack men’s fourth triple crown in school and Big Sky Conference history. Heins was also honored as the Mountain Region Indoor Track and Field Coach of the Year by the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association in 2010. This past fall, the NAU cross country squads under Heins’ tutelage had successful seasons across the board. The Lumberjack women, who saw action from four newcomers in nearly every race, improved on their finishes each week, and established a firm foundation for the next few years. The NAU men’s squad made history with their record fifth-consecutive Big Sky Championship, and seventh-consecutive individual title. Diego Estrada earned All-America honors at the NCAA National Championships by finishing seventh overall, while the team finished in the top-15 for the 18th time since 1984.
Director of Track & Field and Cross Country 3rd Year/6th Overall Coaching Honors
USTFCCCA Track Coach of the Year Mountain Region, Indoor 2010
Big Sky Cross Country Coach of the Year 2007 (M&W), 2008 (M), 2009 (M&W) 2010 (M), 2011 (M) Big Sky Indoor T&F Coach of the Year 2010 (M), 2012 (M)
The team’s greatness continued into the indoor and outdoor track and field seasons, where Heins led the men’s team to Big Sky crowns and conference point records in both, cranking out 215 at the indoor championship held in NAU’s own Walkup Skydome, and putting up 221 at the outdoor meet in Bozeman, Mont. Two of Heins’ distance athletes captured the meets’ respective men’s Most Valuable Athlete honors. Junior Diego Estrada earned his by capturing the indoor meet’s mile, 3,000-meter, and 5,000-meter wins, and senior Jordan Chipangama earned a gold and two silvers in the 800, 1,500, and 3,000-meter runs to earn his honor at the outdoor championships. The women’s track and field teams, under Heins’ tutelage, also improved greatly from 2010 moving from fifth to fourth indoors in 2011, and from eighth to third as a team outdoors. Heins guided freshman Caroline Hogardh to Second Team All-America honors in the 3,000-meter steeplechase at the NCAA Championships in Des Moines, Iowa, where she finished 16th overall to close out the outdoor season. The Lumberjacks thrived in Heins’ first full season as Director of Track and Field. Junior Diego Estrada led the group with a pair of top-10 finishes at the indoor and outdoor national meets in the 5,000-meter run. Heins’ leadership also produced a collective six Big Sky Conference individual titles, including two from Estrada.
In the fall of 2010, NAU’s cross country teams continued their powerful presence as one of the programs in the country. In his fourth season as head coach of cross country, Heins Team Accolades premiere produced a fourth consecutive conference title on the men’s side, and coached an injury-depleted Four Team Top 10s women’s squad to a respectable fifth-place finish in the same meet. At the national meet, the Lumat NCAA XC Championships berjack men placed ninth behind All-America performances from Estrada and Ahmed Osman. 2007 (M-4th), 2008 (M-6th) For his efforts, Heins earned his seventh coach of the year honor from the Big Sky Conference. 2009 (M-4th), 2010 (M-9th)
Eight Big Sky XC Titles 2007 (M&W), 2008 (M&W), 2009 (M&W), 2010 (M), 2011 (M) Two Big Sky Indoor Championships 2010 (M), 2012 (M) Two Big Sky Outdoor Championships 2012 (M)
Serving as the Interim Director of Track and Field, the 2010 track and field campaign under Heins’ direction saw the program collect its first national champion in three seasons, as senior David McNeill won both the indoor and outdoor 5,000-meter run titles. Under the tutelage of Heins, McNeill rewrote the record books at NAU in both the indoor and outdoor 5Ks, as well as giving the program its highest finish (T-8) when he scored 18 points at the NCAA Indoor Championships in Fayetteville, Ark. The 2009 cross country campaign proved to be a historic one for the program as the season culminated with the men’s team finishing fourth overall at the NCAA Cross Country Championships. Heins coached junior David McNeill to his third-straight All-American award as he finished runner-up in the race. Junior Jordan Chipangama finished fifth to give the Lumberjacks their first ever duo to finish in the top five at the NCAA Championships. Senior Veronica Pohl, the lone member of the women’s team to run in Terre Haute, Ind., landed her second-consecutive All-American award after finishing 38th. The combination of top finishes at the cross country and track and field championships by the men’s team during 2009-10, yielded the Lumberjacks a third-place finish in the final standings for the NCAA Division I John McDonnell Program of the Year Award awarded by the USTFCCCA. In 2008-09, the men’s cross country team finished sixth at the NCAA Championships, while the women finished 23rd overall in posting their second consecutive top 25 finish. The men’s sixthplace finish at the 2008 NCAA Championships marked just the second time in NAU history that the Lumberjacks have posted back-to-back top-six finishes. They were led by McNeill (15th overall) and Pohl (16th overall), who were both named to their respective All-American teams. McNeill
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Five-Time Defending Big Sky Men’s Champions