Jeff Coover

Biography

Jeff Coover is in his ninth season as a full-time coach at UNI in 2025-26, focusing on jumps and multi-events. During his time, athletes under Coover's tutelage have earned multiple Missouri Valley Conference (MVC) championships and all-conference honors. Coover is a three-time MVC Men's Indoor Coach of the Year award winner (2023, 2025, 2026) and was named the conference's men's outdoor Assistant Coach of the Year in 2022. Coover's athletes scored an astonishing 70.5 of the Panthers' 157.5 total points at the 2026 MVC Indoor Championships en route to UNI winning its 16th men's team title, with three of their four individual titles coming under his coaching. Before his time at UNI, Coover spent two years as a volunteer at his alma mater of Indiana University as he coached pole vaulters. Coover, a 2010 graduate of Indiana, was the 2009 Big Ten Champion in the vault as a Hoosier and was an All-American as well after earning fourth at the NCAA Indoor Championships. Coover is a four-time NCAA All-American for Indiana. He is a two-time bronze medalist at the U.S. Championships and has competed at 14 U.S. Championships. His personal record in the pole vault stands at 5.68 meters (18 feet, 8 inches). Coover, a native of La Jolla, Calif., earned a degree in environmental management from IU in 2010. Coover currently resides in Waterloo, Iowa with his wife Chelsea.