WSC Track Camps

Marlon Brink
Head Coach

Marlon Brink is in his 10th season as the head men's and women's track and field coach for Wayne State College and has elevated the Wildcat program into one of the best in the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference.

In 2009, Brink coached the Wildcat women's squad to a third place finish at the NSIC Outdoor Championships while placing seventh at the indoor meet.  WSC had three individuals qualify in five events for the NCAA Division II Outdoor Women's National Track and Field Championships with Misty Rystrom taking sixth place in the high jump (5' 7 1/4").  It marks the fourth straight season that the Wayne State College women's track and field team has had an All-American. 

The WSC men's team also had an All-American during the 2009 season in track and field as Matt Schneider earned a fourth place finish in the 3,000 meter steeplechase at the 2009 NCAA Division II Men's Outdoor Nationals.  Schneider was the first NCAA men's track and field outdoor All-American since James McGown in 1998 in the 10,000 meter run.  As a team, WSC placed sixth at the NSIC Indoor Championships and seventh at the NSIC Outdoor Championships.

Under his tenure, WSC athletes have won 56 (28 indoor, 28 outdoor) individual NSIC championships for men and 39 more for women (17 indoor, 22 outdoor) in track and field.  In addition to the success at the conference level, WSC tracksters have also excelled on the national level.  The Wildcats have had a total of 17 NCAA Division II national qualifiers in indoor track and field (four men, 13 women) with one male All-American and four female All-Americans with another 22 national qualifiers (six men, 16 women) in outdoor track and field with one male All-American and five female All-Americans, including the school's first NCAA individual national champion in May, 2008 when Katie Wilson won the women's shot put to make school history. 

In 2008, the Wayne State women's squad recorded a pair of third place finishes at the NSIC indoor and outdoor championships, but posted the school's best-ever finish at the NCAA Division II National Outdoor Championships when the Wildcats scored 18 points to finish in 17th place overall.  WSC had three All-Americans with Katie Wilson posting a first place finish in the shot put to become the school's first-ever NCAA individual champion.  She also placed fourth in the discus while Kylie Herian recorded a sixth place finish in the 100 meter hurdles to round out Wayne State's All-American perfomers. 

The men's team won three straight NSIC outdoor titles under Brink in 2006, '07 and '08 to go with a pair of indoor conference titles in 2006 and 2007. 

In the past five years, Brink has helped Wayne State host several conference championship events, including the 2004 NSIC Indoor Track and Field Championships and the 2006, 2008 and 2009 NSIC Outdoor Track and Field Championships. He has been awarded the NSIC Men's Indoor Track and Field Coach of the Year three times (co-2004, 2006 and 2007) and has received the NSIC Men's Outdoor Track and Field Coach of the Year award the last three seasons (2006, 2007 and 2008) after coaching the Wildcats to the team title. 

Before coming to Wayne State College, Brink spent six years at Mount Marty College in Yankton, S.D. He spent his last five years at Mount Marty as the head coach of the men's and women's cross country and track and field programs. He was an assistant coach with the Lancers during the 1994-95 season.

Brink was instrumental in building successful programs at Mount Marty. He took over the programs in their third year of existence and quickly turned them into one of the top teams in the South Dakota Intercollegiate Conference. He has coached 34 SDIC individual conference champions, 16 NAIA Scholar-Athlete award winners and 9 NAIA All-Americans. In addition, 72 school records have been set or broken during Brink's tenure.

The Lancer women's track team placed 20th at the NAIA Outdoor National Championships. On the men's side, the cross country team placed second at the 1995 SDIC Championships, while the indoor track and field team finished second at the SDIC Championships in 1998.

Brink, a native of Atkinson, Neb., began his coaching career as an assistant coach at South Dakota State University. He spent two years with the Jackrabbits.

A 1991 graduate of Midland Lutheran College, Brink was a standout cross country and track and field performer for the Warriors. He qualified for the 1990 NAIA National Cross Country Championships, and he was a two-time national qualifier in the marathon. In 1991, Brink placed 12th at the NAIA Outdoor National Championships. In addition, Brink earned three NAIA Scholar-Athlete awards.

Marlon and his wife Jeanne are the parents of three children - daughter Courtney (5) and sons Andrew (3) and Lance (1) - and they reside in Wayne.