Muhlenberg College Women's Track

Hackett was hired as Muhlenbergs coordinator of cross country and track and field and head coach of track and field in September 1999 and has led the Mules to unprecedented heights in his first 17 seasons.      The Mules have broken or tied more than 80 school records and sent representatives to the NCAA Division III Championships 16 of the 17 years, with 14 earning All-America status. For the first time in 2013, Muhlenberg had three different athletes earn All-America honors in individual events, and the mens and womens teams both produced All-Americans in the same year for the first time. A Muhlenberg athlete has been named Most Outstanding Performer at the Centennial Conference Championships 17 times during Hacketts tenure, and one was named Mideast Region athlete of the year. The teams have also enjoyed success in the classroom, placing at least one member on the Academic All-America team seven straight years from 2009 to 2015. The Muhlenberg cross country and track teams have received more than 90 certificates from the USTFCCCA for academic achievement in the last 17 years. In 2005, Hackett was named Mideast Region coach of the year after leading the womens team to the Centennial Conference outdoor championship the first conference track title for Muhlenberg in 61 years. Prior to 2000, the women had never placed higher than eighth at the CC outdoor meet. The Muhlenberg men have finished in the top three at the CC Indoor meet eight of the last 16 seasons, after three straight years of ninth-place finishes. The men were a program-best second place outdoors in both 2003 and 2007. The mens cross country team finished a program-best second in the CC and fourth in the region in both 2002 and 2006, with the latter squad earning a bid to the NCAA Championships. The women established a program best by placing seventh in the region in 2011. Hackett, a 1983 graduate of Colgate University, has coached at the collegiate level for more than 25 years, including one academic year (1994-95) during which he was acting head coach of cross country and track at Syracuse University. He was at Syracuse from 1988 to 1997 following three years as an assistant at Bucknell and two at Colgate. From 1998 to 2005, Hackett served as chair of the Mens Development Committee for USA Track and Field, the sports governing body in this country. He was responsible for all aspects of mens development in all events, including talent identification and athlete tracking at the junior elite, emerging elite and elite levels. Hackett, who also is Muhlenbergs director of intramurals and recreation, served as head manager of the United States team for the 2002 International Association of Athletic Federations (IAAF) World Cup, held in Madrid, Spain; assistant manager for the 2001 Outdoor World Championships in Edmonton; and head manager at the 2007 Junior Pan-Am Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Hackett is USATF Level II certified in the jumps and was the mens national triple jump chair for USA Track and Field from 1993 to 1998 and served as national spokesperson for the event. In 2013, Hackett published his first book. If All I Had to Do Was Coach (Coaches Choice Publishing) provides an inside look at Hacketts 30 years of coaching Division I, Division III and Olympic level track and athletes through dozens of humorous anecdotes. Hackett lives in Schnecksville, Pa., with his wife, Lorie.

Finley was named head coach of the Muhlenberg College men's and women's cross country teams in 2015. In his first year as head coach, both the men's and women's teams qualified a runner for the NCAA Championships. The women came in eighth at the NCAA Mideast Regional, tying for the second-best finish in program history, and the men placed in the top third in the region with a young squad that had one junior and no seniors in the top seven. Finley was an assistant coach for the Mules from 2012 to 2014. In each of those seasons, Muhlenberg qualified a runner for the NCAA Championships in cross country. The 2012 qualifier came in 67th, the highest finish ever by a Mule at the national meet, and the 2014 qualifier posted the highest finish by a member of the Mule men's team. Finley also is sprints and hurdles coach for the Muhlenberg track and field teams. In 2013, he coached an All-American in the women's 60-meter hurdles. From 1997 to 2012, he coached at three area high schools, including two stints as head track and field coach at William Allen, as well as high schools in Ohio and Illinois. Finley was an assistant coach for a state championship team in cross country at Emmaus High School and coached individual state champions in cross country and the high hurdles. Finley was a junior college All-American in the intermediate hurdles at Mohawk Valley Community College (N.Y.) before earning a Division I scholarship at Austin Peay State University, from where he graduated in 1979. A master All-American in the high and intermediate hurdles in 1998, Finley began his coaching career with stints at two colleges, the University of Rochester and Lehigh University.