Oklahoma Christian University Men's Track

Wade Miller, a 2006 graduate of Oklahoma Christian University in elementary education, joined the cross country coaching staff for the 2010-11 school year and was named as the program's fifth head coach in June 2012. In May 2015, he took over the reins of OC's track and field programs, becoming only the third person ever to serve in that position. As an assistant, he was a key part of the coaching staff that guided the Eagles to the 2011 NAIA men’s cross country championship, the university’s first in the sport, and Miller led OC to the NCCAA men’s title in 2012 in his first season as the head coach. He earned NCCAA coach-of-the-year honors in the process. In 2013, he coached OC to a fourth-place NCCAA finish, and in 2014, the Eagles were second at the NCCAA meet. In OC's first season to compete at the NCAA Division II Heartland Conference cross country meet, he guided the Eagles to a first-place team finish with one of his runners, Roberto Diaz, winning the individual title. Led by an individual championship from senior Brennym Kaelin, the Eagles won the Heartland title again in 2015 with a dominating team score of 20, and Miller almost certainly would have been the conference coach of the year if the league had named one. In 2016, OC's men and women each posted a runner-up finish at the Heartland meet, and in 2020, the men finished second in the Lone Star Conference Championship meet in San Angelo, Texas, and sixth in the Division II XC National Invitational in Lubbock, Texas. In track and field, he coached four OC runners to NCAA Division II All-America honors in 2017 -- the 4x400-meter relay team of Sawyer Pehkonen, Landon Huslig, Joshua Jones and Jalen Brown during the indoor season and Huslig in the 400-meter hurdles during the outdoor season.  In 2018, the 4x400 team of Ian Colbert, Huslig, Pehkonen and Austin Kruzich again earned indoor All-America honors while Huslig did so in the 400 meters, while outdoors, Huslig won OC’s first Division II national championship, in the 400-meter hurdles. OC’s women also had multiple All-Americans, with McKenzie Stanford (high jump) and Layne Hammer (5,000 meters) earning second-team honors indoors and Stanford earning first-team honors outdoors. The program gained another All-American in 2021, when sprinter Verrell McBride earned that honor in the 200 meters at the NCAA Division II Championships. Miller, 38, competed as a member of the cross country and track and field teams during his time at Oklahoma Christian from 2002 to 2006. He was a three-time national qualifier in cross country and track (steeplechase) and was a two-time NAIA Scholar-Athlete. Miller also was a three-time member of the College Sports Information Directors of America’s Academic All-District team. Miller holds a personal-best time of 9:28.04 in the steeplechase. Before joining the OC coaching staff, Miller spent three years teaching English in the public school system in Mito, Japan. Miller, a native of Lockney, Texas, now resides in Edmond with his wife Janet (Pomeroy). Before his promotion to head track and field coach at OC, Miller served as an assistant coach for those programs, working primarily with middle-distance and distance runners.  

Bennett, the greatest athlete in Oklahoma Christians history, began his second stint as an OC assistant track and field coach in 2003, working primarily with OCs field-event and multi-event competitors. In 2014, one of his pupils, Austin Wallace, won the National Christian College Athletic Association decathlon title, while another, Roz Hamilton, was runner-up in the heptathlon. Bennett, a native of Vinita, Okla., was a member of the 1972 U.S. Olympic team, placing fourth in the decathlon with 7,974 points (missing a medal by just 10 points) at the Olympic Games in Munich. He set a personal record of 8,121 points when he won the American Amateur Union's national decathlon championship in 1973. Bennett, a 1970 OC graduate, won the NAIA championship in the decathlon in 1969 and 1970. In 1968, he was the NAIA champion in the 400-meter intermediate hurdles and was runner-up in the pole vault in 1970. The four-time NAIA All-American still holds OC records in the 400 hurdles (51.44 seconds) and the decathlon (8,071 points). He was inducted into the NAIA Hall of Fame in 1976 and was a charter honoree of the OC Athletic Hall of Fame in 1991. In 2007, he was named as one of the top 100 Oklahoma athletes of the states first 100 years by . Bennett previously served as OCs assistant track and field coach from 1974 to 1985. He spent 28 years in public education, working as a teacher, counselor and administrator for school districts in the Oklahoma City metropolitan area. In 2003, he retired as a lieutenant colonel after serving for 32 years in the U.S. Army National Guard. In addition to his coaching duties, Bennett also served as OCs associate dean of students from 2003 to 2016, when he retired from that position. Bennett and his wife, Lisa, have two daughters, Lauren and Raley.