Notre Dame's Coach Chris Neal On His Wild Journey From Coaching Middle School To Leading Power Five Schools To NCAA Championships

THE RUNNING EFFECT PODCAST

Dominic Schlueter

Running, Sports

4.8 • 686 Ratings

🗓️ 22 March 2024

⏱️ 38 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Today on the podcast is Coach Chris Neal!

Coach Neal is currently an Assistant Track & Field and Cross Country Coach at The University of Notre Dame. He leads the Men's program.

Before Notre Dame, Coach Neal y coached ten NCAA Cross Country Championship team qualifiers with four top-15 finishes. He has also coached his teams to 18 Southern Conference Team Cross Country titles, nine men titles and nine women’s titles. In 2017, Neal coached the Furman program to be the NCAA Cross Country Southeast Regional Team Champions.

In his time at Furman, Coach Neal led 133 individuals to All-Southern Conference Cross Country honors. There were also 47 student-athletes named USTFCCCA All-Regional Cross Country, and 20 NCAA All-Americans. He also coached athletes to break 30 school records.

During his tenure, Coach Neal coached 56 student-athletes to NCAA Track and Field first-round qualifiers and 28 individual NCAA Track and Field Finals qualifiers. Included in those qualifiers is Allie Buchalski, the NCAA 2nd place finisher in the 5,000m Championship in 2018, and Aaron Templeton, the 5th place finisher at NCAA Cross Country Championships in 2018.

Prior to his time at Furman, Neal spent 2008-2012 at Ohio State as the Head Women’s Cross Country Coach and Assistant Track and Field Coach. The Buckeyes were the 2011 and 2012 Outdoor Track & Field Big 10 Champions, and for the first time in school history claimed the Big 10 title for the Indoor Track & Field Championships. Also a first for Ohio State was when Neal coached the team in 2009 to qualify for the NCAA Cross Country Championships.

At Ohio State, Coach Neal coached four individuals to qualify for the NCAA Cross Country Championships. Eight student-athletes earned USTFCCCA All-Region honors in that time. Coach Neal also coached 36 student-athletes to make the Top-5 All-Time List.

Coach Neal's career has also included stops at Tulane University, where he was the Head Women’s Cross Country/Assistant Track and Field Coach, and the University of New Orleans, where he was the Head Cross Country/Assistant Track and Field Coach.

A 2003 Eastern Kentucky University graduate, Neal earned a Bachelor of Science in Physical Education and then went on to obtain a Master of Arts in Sport Administration from Ball State University in 2005.

In today's conversation, Coach Neal takes me through his journey in sport, his principles of coaching, how he recruits the right people to his program, and much more! I thoroughly enjoyed my conversation with Coach Neal and hope you take the time to listen.

Tap into the Coach Neal Special.

You can listen wherever you find your podcasts by searching "The Running Effect Podcast." If you enjoy the podcast, please consider following us on Spotify and Apple Podcasts and giving us a five-star review! I would also appreciate it if you share it with your friend who you think will benefit from it.

The podcast graphic was done by the talented: Xavier Gallo

S H O W N O T E S

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey friends, just a quick note before we hop into today's episode of the podcast, majority of you guys
0:05.9	listening right now have not given us a follow and a five-star review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts,
0:10.7	and it takes legitimately between five-and-10 seconds to hit the follow button, hit the five-star review
0:16.2	button. So I'd greatly appreciate you guys doing so if you have not done so already. And then
0:20.6	something all of you guys can do right now is share today's episode with a friend,
0:24.4	a family member, a teammate, someone who you think would find value and benefit from it.
0:28.8	I would greatly appreciate you guys doing that, sharing the podcast, sharing today's episode
0:32.4	with someone.
0:33.4	Because through that, we can expand the show and reach new people and hopefully through
0:37.3	that inspire them in the process. reach new people and hopefully through that
0:37.5	inspire them in the process.
0:39.3	Without for their due, let's get into today's conversation.
0:42.2	Coach Neil, welcome to the Running Effect podcast.
0:44.4	How are you doing this afternoon?
0:46.0	I'm doing great.
0:46.6	Thanks for having me on.
0:48.3	It's great to join you.
0:50.0	There are many different aspects to your story.
0:52.1	We could dive into and I'm sure we will in this
0:54.2	conversation. But I think a fun place to start is I moved to Columbus in January and you yourself
0:59.6	have some history in the city as a coach of the Ohio State Buckeyes. Take me through those years.
1:05.2	Yeah, that was a, you know, I really loved my time in Columbus. It was a dream job. It was kind of
	...

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