Karen Brandt, who coached the Bloomsburg (Pa.) University women's cross country team to the NCAA Division II national championship meet in 2007, has been named as Bluffton University's new head coach of men's and women's cross country and track and field.
Brandt, who earned a master's degree in American studies from the Pennsylvania State University Capital College, Harrisburg, in 1997, coached at Bloomsburg from 1999-2009. Her 2007 women's cross country team finished 15th in the national meet, capping a season in which the squad was champion of both the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference (PSAC) and the NCAA Division II East Region, and Brandt was conference and regional coach of the year. That team included the first female cross country all-American in school history.
During her decade at Bloomsburg, the Everett, Pa., resident coached three other all-Americans, two in the women's 10,000-meter run and one, two-time honoree in men's cross country; four national cross country championship qualifiers; eight female qualifiers for the national track and field championship; eight PSAC track champions; and numerous all-PSAC and all-region cross country runners, all-conference track athletes, and all-academic individuals and teams honored by the United States Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association.
After leaving Bloomsburg, Brandt coached at Indiana Tech in Fort Wayne from 2009-10 and, last year, was an English and mathematics teacher in a residential program for girls in Warfordsburg, Pa. Her year-plus at Indiana Tech produced 35 NAIA national qualifying performances and seven all-American finishes in two indoor track seasons; 17 national qualifiers and seven all-Americans in one outdoor track season; and one male national qualifier in one cross country season.
A five-time qualifier for the Boston Marathon, Brandt has also coached track and cross country at Susquehanna University in Selinsgrove, Pa., from 1998-99, and at Lower Dauphin High School in Hummelstown, Pa., from 1991-97. From 1989-98, she taught English and public speaking at Elizabethtown (Pa.) Area High School.
