Gregg Gensel

Gregg Gensel is in his 29th year of coaching track & field and cross country at Utah State. He is in his 23rd season as head coach of the men’s program and his 18th year at the helm of the women’s team.

Prior to being named head coach in 1988, the 53-year-old Gensel was an assistant coach for five years and a graduate assistant coach for one year. As an assistant, he worked with all field events and with the sprinters. Currently Gensel works specifically with cross country, distance athletes and high jumpers, along with his head coaching responsibilities.

During his tenure at USU, Gensel has coached the Aggies to 31 conference championships in both men’s and women’s cross country and track & field, including the men winning the 2009-2010 cross country, indoor and outdoor track WAC Championships. It also includes the men and women winning the 2006 and 2008 WAC Cross Country Championships, the men winning the 2007 and 2009 WAC Outdoor Championship and the 2008 WAC Indoor Championship. The Aggie women have won eight of the last 17 track titles while the men have won 12 of the last 18 championships. He has coached 194 conference individual champions and 31 All-Americans.

In the 1998-99 school year, Gensel guided both the men’s and women’s track teams to Big West Conference Championships along with a first-ever women’s crown in cross country.

Gensel has been named the Conference Coach of the Year 27 times during his career, including WAC Men’s Cross Country from 2005-2009.

He earned coach of the year honors in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation after the men’s team won the indoor title in 1993.

Athletes to earn NCAA All-America status under Gensel include: LaDonna Antoine (400), Shane Bingham (1,500, mile), Mark Calvin (pole vault), Craig Carter (hammer throw, 35-pound weight), Shae Bair (pole vault), John Kelly (javelin), Corey Murdock (400 outdoor hurdles, 400 indoor hurdles), James Parker (hammer throw, 35-pound weight, discus), Lance White (pole vault), Dave Hoffman (high jump), Brett Guyman (400 outdoor hurdles), Jane Durfey (400 hurdles), Krista Larson (hammer throw), Jennifer Twitchell (mile), John Strang (heptathlon), Clint Silcock (high jump), and Trever Ball (cross country).

A native of Long Beach, Calif., Gensel attended Utah State and was a middle-distance runner for the Aggies, finishing sixth in the 1,500-meters at the Pacific Coast Athletic Association Championships in 1981 (now the Big West Conference).

Gensel earned a bachelor’s degree in health in 1981 and earned a master’s in physical education with an emphasis in sport psychology in 1988, both from USU. He has been certified as a Level II coach by USA Track & Field, the national track and field governing body, and is also a Level I certified instructor.

He and his wife, Kaye, have four children: Chelsey, Janaea, Morgan and Britton.

Distance Coach

31st Season

Steve Reeder enters his 31st year as the Aggie distance coach. He coaches both the indoor and outdoor runners in the 800 and longer distances, as well as working with both the men’s and women’s cross country teams.

Reeder is a retired physical education teacher from Mount Logan Middle School in Logan.

Reeder was a long jumper at Box Elder High School before earning a bachelor’s degree at Brigham Young University in 1977. He later earned a master’s degree at Utah State.

While teaching English at Duchesne High School for one year, Reeder also coached basketball, wrestling and track. He then came to Logan and taught at the junior high level, coaching track and wrestling for two years prior to becoming an assistant coach at Utah State.

Reeder carried the Olympic Torch as it passed through Logan on its way to the Opening Ceremonies in Salt Lake City for the 2002 Winter Olympic Games.

Steve Reeder enters his 30th year as the Aggie distance coach. He coaches both the indoor and outdoor runners in the 800 and longer distances, as well as working with both the men’s and women’s cross country teams.

Reeder and his wife, Donna, have five children: Emily, Daisy, Marty, Isaac and Sadie.

Sixth Season

Assistant Coach

Entering his seventh year at Utah State is Matt Ingebritsen, whose main responsibility is working with the throwers.

Ingebritsen competed for five years at Boise State in the discus, shot, weight and hammer throw. He ranks third alltime at BSU for indoor 35-pound weight and was a top five all-time hammer thrower there as well.

In 2003, Ingebritsen claimed a top three finish in the shot at the WAC Outdoor Championships. In 2001, he was a top five finisher in shot and discus at the Big West Conference Championships. During the 2004 season, he coached at Mountain View High School in Boise, Idaho. He took six athletes to state and had one finish in the top three in shot and discus.

In 2003 Ingebritsen graduated from Boise State with a degree in social science. In 2006, Ingebritsen received a Master’s of Education degree in health, physical education and recreation from Utah State. He is married to the former Abbey Elsberry.

Assistant Coach

First Season

Yogi Teevens is entering her first year as an assistant coach. Teevens will coach sprinters, long and triple jumpers, and the relay teams.

Prior to joining the USU staff, Teevens spent a total of 13 years at the University of Idaho, nine of which were served as co-head coach for the Vandals. In her time with Idaho, she coached athletes to break 37 school records, including some records broken multiple times.

Teevens started her coaching career in 1990 as an assistant coach at her alma mater, Tulane, where she coached for five years. She led the Green Wave to its first conference championship in 1995. Teevens continued her career at the University of Idaho in the 1996-97 season after serving one year as the head coach for Wisconsin-Stout.

She is married to Sam Teevens, and the couple has one son, Cody, and one daughter, Peyton.

Michael Spence begins his second year coaching at Utah State, working primarily with the distance runners and steeplechasers.

Prior to joining the Aggies, Spence was a cross country All- American at Princeton University. He moved to Utah in 2003 to continue training for his primary event, the steeplechase. He competed in that event at the 2004 and 2008 Olympic Trials, finishing sixth in 2008. In 2007, Spence was the silver medalist in the steeplechase at the Pan American Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He also captained the US National Team at the 2007 World Cross Country Championships in Mombasa, Kenya.

His wife, Kristine, is a marathoner who finished 20th at the 2007 New York City Marathon and competed at the 2008 Olympic Marathon Trials in Boston.

Spence graduated from Princeton in 2000 with a degree in Economics.

Entering his sixth year on Utah State’s coaching staff is Joel Johnson who will work with the multi-events, high jumpers and pole vaulters.

While at Utah State, Johnson has helped produce numerous WAC Champions, regional qualifies and NCAA Championship participants.

As a student-athlete, Johnson walked on to the Utah State team and earned four letters from 2000-03. He holds a place in the top 10 all-time at USU in the pentathlon and pole vault. He was a three-time national qualifier in the decathlon and he holds the school record in that event with 7,586 points. Johnson was also a member of the USU’s third-place 4x100 meter relay team in 2002.

Johnson graduated from Utah State in 2003 with a degree in Spanish teaching and a minor in English as a second language. He and his wife Marcie have three children: Robbie, McCormick and Korbin. Brother, John, is on the USU track and field team competing in the pole vault and multi-events.

Nick Karren begins his first year helping at Utah State working primarily with the hurdlers. Karren was a stand-out athlete for the Aggies from 2006-10, competing at the NCAA Outdoor Championships three times (2007, 2009 and 2010).

Kirstin Flesher begins her first year helping at Utah State after competing for the Aggies from 2007-10 primarily in the pole vault.

Flesher is a native of Edmonton, Alberta Canada.