Mike Hillyard

Biography

After dominating the Great Lakes Valley Conference and being a major player on the NCAA Division II national stage for the better part of two decades, University of Southern Indiana Men's and Women's Cross Country/Track & Field Head Coach Mike Hillyard has led the Screaming Eagles into a new era during the last three seasons as USI made the jump to NCAA Division I and the Ohio Valley Conference in 2022. Under Hillyard's tutelage, the Screaming Eagles have had three OVC individual champions on the cross country course. Hillyard enters his 30th season at the helm of USI Cross Country/Track & Field after taking over the women's program in 1996 and the men's program in 1998. Under Hillyard's direction, the Eagles thrived at both conference and national level, where his teams won a combined 30 conference team championships on the cross country course and nine individual national titles in track & field. A native of Norris City, Illinois, and a 1994 USI graduate, Hillyard resides in Evansville with his wife, Jessica, daughter, Madison, and two step-daughters, Alix Macdonald and Brady Minton. Hillyard was a member of the USI cross country team and ran the steeplechase in track in 1992, earning All-America honors with a fifth-place performance at nationals.