Mark Carroll, a successful head coach with tremendous international experience as coach and Olympian, was named director of track & field and cross country at Drake University in June, 2017
Carroll takes over the Drake track & field and cross country programs after spending the last eight seasons as head cross country coach and assistant track & field coach at Auburn University. At Auburn, Carroll coached five All-Americans, two NCAA regional cross country champions, six Southeastern Conference Champions and 18 All-SEC honorees.
In his eight-year tenure at Auburn, Carroll also mentored seven student-athletes that qualified for the NCAA Cross Country Championships and seven school records were broken.
In 2012, Carroll served as the Irish Olympic team distance coach at the London Olympics and was also Ireland’s distance coach at the 2010 European Championships in Barcelona, Spain.
Carroll boasts an elite-level pedigree as an athlete himself on the international stage as a two-time Olympian representing his native Ireland in the 2000 and 2004 Olympic games in the 5,000 meters and as a six-time World Championships qualifier.
He set Irish national records in the 3,000 (7:30.36), 5,000 (13:03.93) and 10,000 (27:46.42) meters and won the 2000 European Indoor Championship in the 3,000 meters after finishing third in the 5,000 meters at the 1998 European Outdoor Championships. In 2002, he finished sixth in the New York Marathon with a time of 2:10.54 that just missed shattering the Irish national record in that event by 61 seconds.
Carroll ran professionally for Asics, adidas and Nike and assisted the Athletic Association of Ireland prior to beginning his coaching tenure at Auburn. In his role with the Athletic Association of Ireland, he managed US based Irish athletes in preparation for national team competitions and facilitated support services for Irish athletes.
Carroll competed collegiately at Providence College where he was a six-time All-American and the 1995 NCAA indoor champion in the 5,000 meters. In cross country, he was the NCAA Championship runner-up in 1995 and placed third in 1992. A seven-time BIG EAST champion, he was named the Providence College Athlete of the Year in 1995 and 1996 and inducted into the Friars’ Hall of Fame in 2008.
A native of Cork, Ireland, Carroll is married to the former Amy Rudolph, a two-time Olympian herself and a USA Indoor Champion and former national record holder in the 5,000 meters.
