Men's Cross Country
- Title:
- Head Coach (XC) / Assistant Coach (Track & Field)
- Email:
- hayman_jt@mercer.edu
- Phone:
- (478) 301-2144
Josh Hayman was hired as Mercer's head men's and women's cross-country coach on July 1, 2019, and will begin his fifth season at the helm in the fall of 2023.Â
Hayman led his team to record finishes in the 2022 season. Fourteen athletes broke their personal record this year with both teams having their best SoCon conference finish this year since entering the conference back in 2014. The women had their first invitational win since 2020 at USC Upstate. The men established the program's 10k team average record and the women's number 2 all-time 6K team average at NCAA South Regionals Championship. The men set a new school team average of 25:14 at the SoCon Championship with a third-place finish. Under Hayman, Vlad Zander-Velloso broke two school records for the 8K(24:23) and 10k (31:00). The men’s team has never been hirer than 8th prior to Hayman’s tenure.
The 2021's season saw two top ten places for women and four top ten places for Men. The Men finished their season with a 3rd place finish in the Southern Conference Championship.Â
In 2020, Hayman led the men’s cross country to a sixth-place finish at the Southern Conference Championships, which was held in Macon for the first time in Mercer’s tenure as a member. The sixth-place showing was the program’s highest finish since joining the conference before the start of the 2014 season. Josh Kraver, who finished 32nd in the championship race with a time of 27:01.30, was the first SoCon All-Freshman honoree under Hayman’s guidance and just Mercer’s third as member of the Southern Conference. Hayman also led the men to their first team win since 2018. The Bears entered the SoCon Championships with momentum, having won the Mercer Invitational, the last of two home meets in 2020, on October 30. Josiah Jaqua paced the Bears, winning the meet with a time of 26:36.80, while Reece Cato (26:46.41) and Rob Zell (26:52.36) also finished in the top five.
Hayman guided the women’s team to a seventh-place finish at the Southern Conference Championships, which is their second-best finish as members of the conference. The Mercer women began the season in dominant fashion, defeating Georgia State, Valdosta State, Georgia Southern and The Citadel, in the season’s first home meet, the Julius Johnson Invitational. Ashley McMahon won the event with a time of 18:46.66, beginning what would become a stellar junior campaign. McMahon finished in the top-20 in each of Mercer’s four regular season meets as well as the conference championship in Macon. Â
During the 2021 track season, Hayman mentored the distance runners, most notably McMahon and Marina Van Sickle. The duo claimed the top three spots in the 10K records category with McMahon claiming the first two. Van Sickle, who holds the third-fastest time, crossed the finish line in 38:06.81 at the SoCon Championships.Â
Hayman arrived in historic Macon and immediately made an impact on the cross-country program in the fall of 2019. He led both the men's and women's squads to the NCAA South Regional in November, marking the first time that the men competed at the regionals since 2014 while the women last made a trip to regionals in 2017. At the 2019 South Regional, the men competed with a full squad while Jerrica Hanson and McMahon represented the women's squad. Hayman coached the men's team to an 8K time of 25:59 in 2019, the Bears' second-fastest average all-time. Also, Zander-Velloso now sits fifth all-time for the Bears with his performance of 25:22 at the Blazer Classic. On the women's side, Hayman coached McMahon to the highest individual honors at the SoCon meet for Mercer since 2014 with an 18th-place showing.
Before Mercer, Hayman was named the NJCAA Atlantic and Region X Coach of the Year in 2017 and 2018, having led Louisburg College (N.C.) to national success over the last two years. His cross-country and track and field programs ranked inside the top 10 nationally at the junior college level.
Prior to his success at Louisburg, Hayman served as the acting head cross country and distance coach at University of Louisiana at Monroe (ULM) while pursuing his master’s degree in exercise science. He held a position at ULM from July 2015 to August 2017. During his time with the Warhawks, Hayman coached several All-Sun Belt athletes in the 10,000-meter, 5,000-meter and 1,500-meter and additionally had a top-five finisher at the Sun Belt Cross Country Championships in Elias Keter.Â
Hayman, a Delaware native, ran cross country and track at Syracuse University, where he graduated in 2015 with a degree in exercise science. He primarily ran middle-distance events, culminating in an All-Big East performance in the 4x800-meter relay at the 2013 Big East Championship. The Orangemen won the NCAA Division I Cross Country Championship in 2015.
Coaching Experience
2019-Present: Mercer University (Head Coach - XC, Assistant Coach - Track and Field)
2017-19: Louisburg College (Head Coach)
2015-17: ULM (Interim Head Coach / Graduate Assistant)
Personal Leader
Hometown: Middletown, Del.
High School: Appoquinimink High School, 2011
College: Syracuse University, 2015 | ULM, 2017
