Jay Dirksen

Mailing Address:
Nebraska Track & Field
1631 Court Street Lincoln, NE 68588-0637
Phone: (402) 472-6461 

Fax: (402) 472-9361 
Email: jdirksen@huskers.com 

• 22 NCAA Cross Country Teams
• Three NCAA National Champions
• One U.S. Olympic Trials Champion
• 39 Track and Field All-Americans
• 14 Cross Country All-Americans
• 45 Track and Field Conference Champions
• Five Big 12 Cross Country Team Titles
• Six NCAA Regional Cross Country Team Titles
• 2003 Women's Midwest Region Cross Country Coach of the Year 

Jay Dirksen enters his 28th year as Nebraska’s head coach for the cross country team and also serves as the assistant head track and field coach, in charge of the middle and long distance runners for both men and women. For the last 27 years, the cross country team has consistently been among the top programs in the country, while Dirksen has established himself as the most successful cross country coach in Nebraska history since his arrival in the fall of 1983.

 

Overall, the Dirksen era has been filled with outstanding team and individual highlights. The women have won five conference team championships (1985, 1988, 1989, 1991, 1993), the only women’s cross country titles in school history. The men have also traditionally been one of the top teams in the conference since 1983. Under Dirksen, three Huskers have won individual conference titles, two for the men, Jonah Kiptarus (1996) and David Iteffa (1991), and one for the women, Fran ten Bensel (1991), in one of the toughest cross country conferences in the nation. Dirksen’s teams have produced 36 top-five finishes and 21 top-three finishes in his 27 appearances at the league championships.

 

The Cornhusker harriers have been competitive at the NCAA qualifying championships under Dirksen. Twenty-two of his men’s and women’s teams have qualified for the NCAA Cross Country Championships, and he has coached at least one runner at the national event in 25 of his 27 seasons as head coach. In 2005, Kayte Tranel became the 14th athlete to earn All-America honors (20 certificates) under Dirksen, when she placed 27th overall at the NCAA Championships in Terre Haute, Ind.

 

Dirksen’s Husker teams have produced many memorable moments at the NCAA cross country meet, including back-to-back third-place finishes in 1988 and 1989 by the women’s team. No women’s team had ever qualified for the national championships before Dirksen’s arrival. Sammie Resh led the 1988 team with an impressive seventh-place finish, the highest individual finish by a Husker female, while Tranel’s placing in 2005 was the highest since 1993, when Theresa Stelling placed 24th. Yvonne van der Kolk also ran a strong race in the 1988 national meet to finish 16th, the first time two Nebraska harriers earned All-America status in the same season. Although no individual Huskers earned All-America recognition in 1989, a balanced team again finished third, as the top five Husker runners finished within 33 seconds of each other. In 2008, the women produced their third straight third-place finish at the Big 12 Championships, before placing third at the NCAA Midwest Regional to earn an at-large bid to the NCAA Championships. The team went on to finish 25th at the national meet, their top placing since 1999 when they finished 16th.

 

The men have appeared at the NCAA Championships eight times under Dirksen, most recently in 2001.  The 2002 team fell a single point short of qualifying at the NCAA Midwest Region Championships. The Huskers’ highest team finishes came in 1989 and 1996. The 1989 team, behind the All-America duo of Joe Kirby (13th) and Jacques van Rensburg (21st), placed eighth following runner-up finishes to eventual NCAA champion Iowa State at both the Big Eight and NCAA District V Championships that same year. Van Rensburg (13th) and Kirby (34th) repeated as All-Americans in 1988, when the Huskers finished 11th as a team. The most talented Husker team in school history was the 1996 NCAA Championships squad, which finished in seventh place for the highest team finish by the Nebraska men. Led by Kenyan standouts Jonah Kiptarus and Cleophas Boor, who finished just four seconds apart in second and third place, respectively, that team kept improving after runner-up finishes at both the Big 12 and NCAA District V Championships. Kiptarus and Boor capped an exciting racing season with the two highest finishes by Husker athletes at the NCAA Championships.

 

In cross country, Dirksen has coached 14 Nebraska athletes who have earned 20 NCAA Division I Cross Country All-America awards. Only one Husker male, and no female runners, had earned All-America recognition before Dirksen’s arrival. Among the honored athletes are three-time All-American ten Bensel (1990-91-92) and two-time All-Americans Boor (1996-97), Kirby (1988-89), Resh (1987-88) and van Rensburg (1988-89). Ten Bensel’s highest finish was ninth place in the 1992 championship. In addition to the second- and third-place finishes by Kiptarus and Boor in 1996, the other highest men’s individual places were earned by Jean Verster, who took fifth in 1985, and Boor, who placed sixth in 1997. All-America status was also earned by Broekzitter (1997), Theresa Stelling (1993), Kurt Russell (1984) and Wally Duffy (1983).

 

On the track, Dirksen’s athletes have claimed 39 All-America awards and captured 45 conference championships. David Adams is the most recent distance runner to capture a conference title with his win in the 5,000-meters at the 2010 Big 12 Indoor Championships.

 

School records have been set in all but one distance event during Dirksen’s coaching stint. The Nebraska team of Alex Lamme (800), Miklos Roth (400), Jonah Kiptarus (1,200) and Balazs Tolgyesi (1,600) captured the 1996 NCAA indoor title in the distance medley relay (9:32.13). Tolgyesi went on to set Hungarian national and Nebraska school records in the 1,500-meter run (3:35.57) in the semifinals of the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta.

 

Dirksen also helped hone the skills of 2004 U.S. Olympic Trials champion Ann Gaffigan in the women’s 3,000-meter steeplechase. At the Trials in Sacramento, Calif., Gaffigan upset the field with a then-American-record time of 9:39.35. Dirksen’s most recent success story has been that of former Husker Anne Shadle, who became the first NU female athlete to win NCAA titles in both the indoor mile and 1,500-meter run outdoors in 2005. Shadle rewrote Husker records for both events, and then went on to sign a professional contract with Reebok.

 

Dirksen began his coaching career as the head men’s cross country and track and field coach at his alma mater, South Dakota State, in 1969. In 1975, Dirksen started the women’s cross country program at South Dakota State. He coached six NCAA Division II champions and 34 All-Americans during his eight years at South Dakota State. His 1973 Jackrabbit men’s cross country team won the NCAA Division II Cross Country championship.

 

In 1977, Dirksen left South Dakota State and spent five years as the assistant men’s track and field coach at Illinois. He coached one NCAA Division I All-American during that time. Before his arrival in Lincoln, Dirksen spent the 1983 season as the head women’s track and field coach at Missouri. The Tiger women placed third at the Big Eight Indoor Championships and second at the Outdoor Championships. In addition, Dirksen produced one All-American and five Big Eight champions at Missouri.

 

A graduate of South Dakota State (B.S., 1968, physical education; M.S., 1969, physical education), Dirksen married Diane Stewart in 1972. They have a son, Derek, and a daughter, Kristi.