Mircea Bogdan was named director of the Cougars track & field and cross country teams on May 16, 2022.
Bogdan joins the Cougars following seven seasons as an assistant coach with the Loyola University Chicago cross country and track & field programs where he also served as a volunteer assistant coach in 2014-15. Under his tutelage, Bogdan played a major role in the development of 36 All-Missouri Valley Conference selections. At the forefront of that group was Kevin White. Under Bogdan's tutelage, White captured three Valley 800m titles, highlighted by back-to-back victories in the event at the outdoor league meet in 2017 and 2018. White earned Honorable Mention All-American honors after he posted the fourth fastest 1,500m time in school history (3:43.26) to qualify for the NCAA Championships.
On the cross country course, Bogdan helped develop Alex Baker into one of the conference's top male runners. A two-time All-Valley selection, Baker earned top-10 finishes in his last two appearances at the MVC Cross Country Championships, highlighted by an impressive runner-up showing (24:38) in the men's 8k race.
Prior to his latest stint at Loyola, Bogdan spent the 2015-16 season as an assistant coach at Western Illinois where he oversaw the men’s and women’s distance teams and served as a recruiting coordinator, bringing in 35 student-athletes, the Leathernecks largest class in the previous seven years.
The Romania native served as an assistant coach with the women's distance program for the Adidas Boulder-Wave Romanian team and began his coaching career as a graduate assistant coach at Saint Francis University. During his time in Loretto, Pa., the Red Flash captured the 2009 Northeast Conference (NEC) title, with a numerous athletes earning individual league titles as well.
Prior to joining the coaching ranks, Bogdan racked up honors as a student-athlete at the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP). In 2005, he became the first male Miner since 1999 to be crowned an NCAA champion when he took first in the 3,000m steeplechase at the 2005 NCAA Outdoor Track & Field Championships in Sacramento, Calif. Just a year later, he helped the school claim a seventh-place finish at the outdoor national meet. Adding to his athletic accomplishments, in 2008, Bogdan qualified to represent Romania in the steeplechase at the Beijing Olympics. He won 20 national championships in Romania and is the current Romanian junior record holder in the 3k steeple.
Bogdan graduated from the University of Texas at El Paso with a Bachelors of Health Science in Kinesiology and a Masters of Education from Saint Francis University.
