Director of Cross Country/Track & Field Brent Chumbley announced the addition of Anthony Acklin to the track & field coaching staff, specializing in sprints, hurdles and horizontal jumps, on March 2, 2022.
Acklin joins the staff at WKU with 14 years of coaching experience, including five at the Power Five level. In his last coaching stop at Ole Miss, the sprints coach sent 18 student-athletes to the NCAA Championships, including 14 who earned All-American honors.
In his five seasons with the Rebels, 22 of his athletes scored at the SEC championships. He also has numerous athletes on the women’s side who made their way into the indoor and outdoor top performance lists in Ole Miss program history.
Specifically in the outdoor season, Acklin coached 43 athletes into the NCAA East Regional, including at least eight in each of his five seasons in Oxford.
Acklin coached at his alma mater of Southern Illinois for one season in 2015 before heading to Ole Miss. Multiple athletes found their way into the record books and he coached numerous sprinters to All-Missouri Valley Conference honors. In the one season, he sent three sprinters to the NCAA West Regional.
Prior to heading to Division I coaching, Acklin made two stops at the NJCAA (JuCo) level, producing a total of 97 All-Americans and 43 NJCAA National Champions across eight years as an assistant coach.
Acklin coached at Iowa Central Community College from 2009 to 2014 where he was a part of seven NJCAA National Championships. Under his stint as an assistant coach for sprints, the men won three indoor national titles (2011, 2012, 2014) and the women won three indoor (2010, 2012, 2014) and one outdoor (2013).
While at IOCC, Acklin was named the NJCAA Indoor Assistant Coach of the Year on three different occasions. He also coached two male hurdlers who won the 110-meter and 400-meter national titles in 2011.
In his first experience coaching, he served as an assistant at Rend Lake College from 2006 to 2008. The squad swept the indoor NJCAA national titles in 2008 on the men’s and women’s sides.
Acklin has coached numerous national team members including Olympic silver medalist Ryan Bailey (2012, USA, 4x100-meter relay), Adriana Bradford (2010, USA), Nathan Arnett (2010-11, Bahamas), Teshon Adderley (2012, Bahamas) and Reyare Thomas (2011-12, Trinidad and Tobago).
Acklin graduated from Southern Illinois in 2006 with a bachelor’s degree in liberal arts. He was a three-time MVC Champion with the Salukis, lettering from 2004 to 2006. He won the 110-meter hurdle titles in 2005 and 2006 and picked up the 4x100-meter relay crown in 2006. He is still amongst the Saluki record books in the 110-meter and 60-meter hurdles.
Prior to attending SIU, Acklin was a two-time NJCAA All-Amerian at Wallace State Community College. As a native of Glassboro, N.J., he attended Triton Regional High School and was inducted into their Athletic Hall of Fame in 2013. As of February 2015, he is a USATF Level III and IAAF Level V certified coach in sprints and hurdles, the highest possible certification.
