Colin Young joined the Augustana staff in 2018 as an assistant coach for women's cross country and track & field. Young came to the Vikings’ after three years at Wabash College in Crawfordsville, Indiana, where he served as head coach in cross country and as an assistant in track & field.
While at Wabash, Young led the Little Giants’ cross country program to the 2015 Great Lakes Regional title and an eighth place finish at the NCAA Division III Championship. In three seasons, his athletes earned all-conference honors a total of 31 times and All-America recognition twice.
Prior to his time at Wabash, Young was a men’s track assistant under Thompson for two seasons at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts. He also assisted with the women’s track program and with both men’s and women’s cross country. During his time there, the men’s and women’s cross country teams both logged top-ten national finishes and the men’s track squad finished 12th in the nation.
Young is a graduate of North Central College in Naperville, Illinois, where he and Thompson were teammates. He was the NCAA Division III national champion in the 10,000 meters as a senior and earned All-America honors four times in track and twice in cross country. He helped the Cardinals win a total of four NCAA Division III National Championships in cross country and track & field. He ran two years at Duke University before transferring to North Central.
He graduated in 2000 with degrees in physical education and history before going on to earn his master’s in sports psychology and his PhD in sociology of sport & education from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, Tennessee. While at Tennessee he was a volunteer assistant on the Volunteers 2002 NCAA Indoor National Champions.
Young spent 2005-06 as a volunteer track and cross country assistant at his alma mater before moving to Wuhan, China, where he founded and coached the Track & Running Club at Huazhong University of Science & Technology. He spent seven years in China and one in Ethiopia where he worked with elite runners before accepting the job at Williams in 2014.
