Rollie Geiger - Senior Associate Director Track & Field and Cross Country/Men's Cross Country Head Coach - Cross Country Coaches

Rollie Geiger

Title:
Senior Associate Director Track & Field and Cross Country/Men's Cross Country Head Coach
Email:
rggeiger@ncsu.edu
Phone:
(919) 515-3959

As Head Cross Country Coach (Men: 1981-present, Women: 1981-2006):

208 All-ACC selections
57 All-America selections
32 ACC Championships
28x ACC Cross Country Coach of the Year
7x NCAA Southeast Regional Coach of the Year
21 National Top-10 Finishes
19 ACC Individual Champions
15 NCAA Postgraduate Scholars

In the summer of 2023, it was announced that Rollie Geiger would assume the role of Senior Associate Director of Track & Field and Cross Country, while continuing to coach the men’s cross country team. The 2025 season will mark the 44th season in which Geiger will coach a cross country team at NC State, as he leads the men’s team into another campaign.

Geiger has completed 44 seasons as NC State's head cross country coach and architect of one of the nation's premier cross country programs. During Geiger's remarkable tenure as an assistant and head coach, NC State's teams have built a tradition matched by few programs nationally, combining to win 34 Atlantic Coast Conference team championships and 22 individual ACC championships since 1979.

In addition, Geiger has won eight conference championships in track & field since taking over that program in 1984, giving him a conference-record 40 ACC championship teams.

In May of 2025, Geiger was one of 11 people who was inducted into the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame.

For the 2024 season, Geiger’s squad finished seventh at the NCAA Southeast Regional. Brett Gardner led the way, finishing 13th and earning All-Region recognition. Geiger went on to coach Gardner to an individual berth at the NCAA Cross Country Championships, where he finished 122nd.

During the 2023 season, the men’s cross country team finished third at the NCAA Southeast Regional and 17th at the NCAA Championship.

At the Southeast Regional, four athletes (Hannes Burger, Brett Gardner, Toby Gualter and Daniel McGoey) finished in the top 25, helping to secure the third-place finish.

In 2022, Geiger led the men’s cross country squad to its highest team finish since 2018 as they placed 11th at the NCAA Cross Country Championships in Stillwater, OK. Ian Shanklin took home All-American honors for the Wolfpack.

During the 2021, he coached JP Flavin to an individual berth at the NCAA Cross Country Championships, and the graduate student placed 50th overall at the meet.

For the 2020 season, Geiger led a program that had five All-ACC selections, the most the team had seen since the 2017 season. The men's team placed 23rd at the NCAA Championships, an improvement from 26th in the 2019 season.

In December 2019, Geiger became the first Wolfpack head coach to be inducted into the Hall of Fame, which started in 1995.

Geiger turned over the NC State women's team to Laurie Henes in 2006, but not before Geiger-coached women's teams finished among the top 10 at the AIAW or NCAA Championships 15 times, winning it all in 1979 and 1980. The Pack finished second in 1978, 1987 and 2001 and posted third-place finishes in 1983, 1984 and 1985. The women won seven-consecutive ACC Championships from 1987-93 and claimed 20 of 26 ACC titles from the time women's cross country was added as a championship sport in 1978 until Geiger handed over the reins to Henes.

Geiger's men's cross country teams have won 15 ACC championships, the latest coming in 2011. At the national level, Geiger's men's teams have earned 10 national top 10 finishes, most recently finishing 10th in 2011. NC State’s highest men’s finish under Geiger came in 1999 when the Pack placed third at the NCAA National Championships.

In tandem with one another, NC State's men's and women's cross country teams have come to define the sport in the Atlantic Coast Conference. In 1991, Geiger led both teams to ACC championships, the first time any ACC school won both the men's and women's championships in the same year. His teams repeated their ACC dual titles in 1992, then went on a run of absolute dominance, winning both the men's and women's championships six times in eight years - 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 2001 and 2002. With Geiger leading the men and Henes coaching the women, the Wolfpack won its ninth dual conference championship in 2006, giving NC State nine dual ACC championships in a span of 16 years.

When Geiger was named ACC Men's Coach of the Year in 2011, it marked the 12th time in a 16-year span he had been named ACC Coach of the Year for either the men, women, or both. He was men's and/or women's coach of the year eight years in a row, from 1995-2002, and has since been named conference coach of the year in 2004, 2006, 2009 and 2011. In all, Geiger has been named the conference coach of the year 28 times in cross country, and an unprecedented 32 times combined in cross country and track and field.

In 2016, the USTFCCCA announced that the NCAA Southeast Regional Women's Coach of the Year award would be renamed to honor the "long-lasting tradition of excellence" that coach Gegier continues to build. In its debut year, the Rollie Geiger Award was given to NC State head women's coach Laurie Henes after she led her team to a dominant win at the regional competition. Geiger most recently won the award in 2018 after leading NC State's men to the Southeast Regional title.

Adding to Geiger's greatness, the 2013 season marked the third consecutive year a Wolfpack runner has earned the ACC Performer of the Year award. Ryan Hill won the award in 2011, while Andrew Colley was the back-to-back recipient in 2012 and 2013.

In 1987, the Cross Country Journal recognized NC State as having the nation's most outstanding collegiate cross country program. The Wolfpack programs earned that distinction with their second-place finish in the women's NCAA Championships and a fifth-place finish at the men's nationals.

In the classroom, Geiger's runners have embodied the definition of student-athletes. The men's and women's cross country teams each earned Academic All-America status from the United States Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association in 2000, ‘05, ‘06, ‘07, ‘08, ‘09, ‘10, ‘12, ‘13, ‘14, ‘15 and ‘16. The women's teams also earned the distinction in 2001, ‘02, ‘03, ‘04, ‘12, ‘13, ‘14, ‘15 and ‘16.

Wolfpack runners have also been regular recipients of the NCAA postgraduate scholarship. Bobby Mack won the scholarship in 2008-09, and John Crews, Stephen Furst and Tibor Vegh all received NCAA postgraduate scholarships in 2007-08. Fourteen NC State cross country runners have won the NCAA scholarship in the last 16 years. Previous winners in that time include Beth Kraft, Katie Sabino, Chris Seaton, Kristin Price, Kristen Hall, Joe Wirgau, Robbie Howell, Chan Pons, Amy Beykirch and Christy Nichols.

Following the 1991-92 season, All-America runner David Honea received the prestigious Walter Byers Award as the nation's premier scholar-athlete, in addition to the Jim Weaver Award and the National Science Fellowship Award for his academic accomplishments. All-American Laurie Gomez-Henes won the ACC's Marie James Scholarship as well as an NCAA postgraduate scholarship.

Well-known on the national level, Geiger coached at the Olympic Festival and in 1987 was named coach of the U.S. National Team for the World Cross Country Championships in Auckland, New Zealand. He has been a featured speaker at the U.S. Olympic Training Center and a member of the U.S. Olympic Development Committee for distance running.

Prior to coming to Raleigh, Geiger led a very successful prep program at Bradenton (Fla.) High School. A graduate of Kent State University, he was a three-time letterwinner in track and cross country, and majored in health education and psychology. Kent State's Varsity K Hall of Fame honored Geiger as the distinguished alumnus in its inductee class of 2008.

Geiger is married to the former Betty Springs, one of the finest runners in NC State history. She was inducted into the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame in 2003. They have a daughter, Rachel, and a son, Trey.