Kansas Wesleyan Vice President and Director of Athletics Mike Hermann has accepted the resignation of Luke Samford as Head Cross Country and Track and Field coach.

Samford spent the last three seasons at Kansas Wesleyan, the first as an assistant before assuming the head coaching role prior to the start of the 2017-18 season.

“I appreciate Luke’s contributions to our athletics program over the past three years, particularly the last two years as he served as head cross country and track & field coach. The program made great progress under his leadership,” Hermann said. “He also played a major leadership role in the successful hosting of the 2019 KCAC Outdoor Track & Field Championships, the first track event of any type on our campus in years and the first KCAC championship event since 1968. It was the first KCAC women’s track championship ever hosted on campus.”

While at KWU, Samford coached three NAIA national individual qualifiers in cross country and the 2016 men’s team qualified for the national championships. In track he coached five national qualifiers. He coached a total of 16 All-KCAC cross country performers, 27 All-KCAC indoor track and 29 All-KCAC

His teams also had academic successes with eight Daktronics-NAIA Scholar-Athletes in cross country and nine Daktronics-NAIA Scholar-Athletes in track.

“I want to thank Mike Hermann for the opportunity to lead this program for the past two years.  We made great strides during my time at Kansas Wesleyan, and I leave knowing the program is in better shape than when I took over,” Samford said. “A colleague once told me, ‘You take a little piece of every school with you.’ I am proud to add Coyote to my list of titles.

My wife and I are excited to start this new adventure together, but I know we’ll be back soon to see her family.”

The search for the next cross country and track coach has begun with a national search.