Bushnell University Women's Cross Country

McNeil, the inaugural running coach for NCU, has been leading the men's and women's cross country program since 2006 and the men's and women's distance track teams since their inception in 2009. McNeil has developed NCU into one of the premier distance running programs in the NAIA, culminating in an NAIA National Championship in 2015. She has won two Cascade Collegiate Conference championships, earned two CCC Coach of the Year awards and was named the 2015 NAIA national Coach of the Year.  Her teams have consistently been ranked in the top-25 nationally and since 2011 have qualified for five straight NAIA National Championships. In 2011 the women's cross country team took fourth place and in 2014 the Beacons finished third, after winning the school's first ever Cascade Collegiate Conference Championship in any sport.  McNeil has coached 15 NAIA All-Americans and numerous All-Cascade Collegiate Conference recipients, including nine individual CCC Champions in both Cross Country and Track & Field.  Known for their strength in the classroom equal to their strength on the course, McNeils teams have garnered countless Academic All-CCC and NAIA Scholar-Athlete winners. Her teams have also collected over 20 NAIA Scholar-Team Awards since 2009.   Coach McNeil began at NCU in 2004 as an Assistant Professor of Chemistry and quickly established a successful running club on campus, taking students and faculty to various road races and other running events. That club evolved into the current varsity teams, which begin competition in the Fall of 2006. McNeil was a star runner at Linfield College from 1992-1996, participating in Cross Country and distance events for Track & Field. She was an All-American and All-American Scholar Athlete for the Wildcats in 1994. She was also an NAIA National Qualifier for the Marathon before graduating in 1996 with a BS in Chemistry.  McNeil is an active competitive runner and in the summer of 2010, took home a pair of second-place finishes (1500m, 5000m) at the USA Masters Track & Field National Championships in Sacramento, California. Coach McNeil earned her PhD in Chemistry from the University of Oregon in 2000 and continues to work as a Professor on the NCU Faculty. She and her husband David live in Eugene.  

Jackson has been with the NCU cross country and distance track programs since 2008.  Having been a member of the running community in "Track Town, USA", Jackson comes in with a wealth of experience to his first collegiate coaching post.  Jackson continues to run competitively and is a member of the Eugene Running Club and the USATF. As a member of the Oregon Track Club Masters, he has performed at both the US and World Championships, running in the 1500m and 5000m events. He was named the 2011 OTCM Performer of the Year. Jackson competes locally in distance events and has won his age group in four Eugene Half-Marathons.  After running collegiately, Jackson began a 20-year career in the trucking industry as a Diesel Mechanic before returning to running in the early 2000's. Jackson currently lives in Springfield with his wife, Shannon.