Concordia University NE Women's Track

McLaughlin has tutored eight individual national champions, 120 individual national qualifiers, 108 All-Americans, 41 GPAC champions and 18 national champion runner-ups. National titles have been captured by Zach Lurz (three times in the shot put), Liz King (2016 hammer, 2014 javelin), Cody Boellstorff (2015 hammer, 2016 weight) and Josh Slechta (2015 weight throw). In addition, school throwing records have been broken 29 times in McLaughlin's tenure as coach. In the first season of honors given out by the USTFCCCA, McLaughlin swept NAIA Midwest Region men's and women's assistant coach of the year honors for both indoor and outdoor and garnered USTFCCCA NAIA national assistant coach of the year honors for indoor men and for outdoor men and women. Concordia throwers have been particularly dominant over the past two years, leading the Bulldogs to outdoor team national titles in 2015 (men) and 2016 (women). The 2016 group of throwers combined for four national titles, nine GPAC titles and 34 total All-America awards. For the second-straight year, the most throwers in Concordia history qualified for nationals (12 indoor, 16 outdoor). Lurz (2016 USTFCCCA NAIA National Indoor Field Athlete of the Year), named the most valuable performer of the 2015 NAIA outdoor national championships, won both GPAC shot put titles in 2015. He was the 2014 GPAC Outdoor Athlete of the Year and is now a 12-time All-American. Lurz and Boellstorff posted a combined 30 points to power the 2015 outdoor team national title. Boellstorff and Lurz, first and second, respectively, in the hammer throw at the national championships, led an impressive showing in the hammer throw in which Bulldogs placed first, second, third and eighth. During the 2016 outdoor season, Slechta broke school records in the discus and hammer and won GPAC championships in both events. On the women's side, javelin thrower Liz King (2016 USTFCCCA NAIA Outdoor Field Athlete of the Year) won the 2014 national championship by 15 feet, broke the school record by 23 feet and the GPAC meet record by 15 feet. She finished her career with four conference titles in the javelin and two in the hammer (also the GPAC meet record holder in the hammer). She was also the national champion runner up in the javelin in 2015 and 2016. Steph Coley finished her impressive career with 11 All-America awards. Kali Robb now has two career national runner-up finishes and seven All-America awards to her credit. McLaughlin was a four-year letter winner in both football and track at Concordia. He was the NIAC shot put champion in 1996, a six-time competitor in the NAIA Championship meet and he broke the school record in discus as a freshman.  In football, McLaughlin played on the offensive line and earned All-NIAC honors twice for the Bulldogs. He also was a two-time All-Nebraska selection and earned NAIA Honorable Mention All-America honors in 1996.  McLaughlin completed his bachelors degree in Exercise Science with a minor in Biology at Concordia University in 1998. He resides in Lincoln with his wife, Tasha, and their daughter, Clara.