Brian Hunter enters his second season with William and Mary, after joining the program in August of 2012. This year he’ll add coaching, training, and recruitment responsibility over the sprinters and hurdlers, in addition to continuing in charge of the jumpers and pole vaulters. Hunter will also assist W&M's national-class track and field programs in a variety of administrative functions and in meet-management for both cross country and track and field.
In his first year with W&M, Hunter oversaw a renaissance of the pole vaulting group, including the first CAA men’s pole vault title ever. He trained all three of the freshmen men to heights over 15-5, marking the first time since 1971 that the Tribe has had three or more vaulters at that level. At the final regular-season meet outdoors, Austin Vegas eclipsed 5.01m (16-5.25) to smash the freshman record and come within an inch of the College’s all-time outdoor record. Vegas also won the CAA title, the first conference championship for W&M since 1977 in the men’s pole vault, and competed in the first round of the NCAA Championships.
On the women’s side, both Elizabeth Crafford and Nicole Dory repeated as ECAC qualifiers indoors, and Crafford extended that outdoors as well. She cleared 3.80m (12-5.25) at the UVA meet, and was runner-up at the CAA Championships. Dory hit 3.60m (11-9.75) several times, and was also the Tribe’s top long jumper and triple jumper, placing fifth in the latter event at the conference meet. Nina Ullom matched her career-best of 3.60m at back-to-back meets in mid-April, before missing the rest of the season due to injury.
Before joining the Tribe, Hunter had been coaching at the high school and collegiate levels for nearly 10 years, including stints on staff at Texas and West Point. Most recently, he was the pole vault coach at Grassfield High in Chesapeake, where he had six district qualifiers, four regional qualifiers, and one state qualifier. Hunter has also served as the Head Tutor/Mentor for Math and Sciences in the Texas athletic department. Off the track, he was a mentor/tutor with the Austin, Texas, Boys and Girls Club, and has worked for numerous companies as a chemical engineer. His areas of expertise include (but are not limited to) biotechnology, robotics & automation, materials engineering, x-ray metrology, and FT-IR/VUV/UV-Vis spectroscopy.
Hunter’s athletic credentials are impeccable, with tremendous success both in the state of the Virginia and nationally. He graduated from Great Bridge in 1997 after winning three Virginia AAA state championships, but that was merely a prelude to his great college career. First at Virginia Tech, he won three Atlantic-10 championships and took third at the NCAA indoor championships in 2000. Later that summer, he was seventh at the Olympic Trials. Hunter then transferred to Texas, where he earned three-more All-America awards and won the 2002 NCAA Outdoor Championship with a career-best vault of 5.70 meters (18-8.25). He qualified for his second Olympic Trials in 2004.
Hunter is coaching-certified by both the National Pole Vault Coaches Association and the National Pole Vault Safety Board, and is a member of USA Track and Field and the American Tae Kwon Do Association. He graduated from Texas in 2003 with a degree in chemical engineering. Hunter and his wife, Tenisha, are the proud parents of young Ethan.
