(Bryan) Cole Hester joined the Columbia Cross Country and Track & Field staff on Jan. 24, 2020 after spending two seasons, from 2018-19, as a member of the coaching staff at Notre Dame. The 2022-23 season will be his third with the Lions.
Since coming to Columbia, Hester has overseen the cross country men record their best finish (since 2017) at the NCAA Northeast Regionals, fifth in 2021, three Lions earn NCAA Cross Country All-Northeast Region honors and Tyler Berg earn cross country All-Ivy League honors before running at the NCAA Cross Country National Championships.
On the track, Hester helped coach a pair of Ivy League champions in both the indoor and outdoor 4x800m and oversaw four middle to distance men qualify for the 2022 NCAA Eastern Prelims.
During his time at Notre Dame, Hester worked with the men's cross country and distance teams, and during his first season on the staff (2018), he helped the men's cross country squad take its first ACC Conference Cross Country title in program history. Following the ACC Championships, Hester coached the men's team to a second place finish at regionals and a 14th place finish at the NCAA National Championships.
Hester was a part of a men's cross country squad that finished second at the 2018 ACC Championships, second at the regionals and eighth at the NCAA National Championships. Overall while on the coaching staff at Notre Dame, the Irish had three student athletes crowned All-Americans.
On the track, during the 2018-19 indoor season, Hester, helped the men win the One-Mile Run at the ACC Championships and he coached the men's Distance Medley Relay squad that won the ACC Championship, and qualified for the NCAA Indoor Track & Field National Championships by running the second fastest DMR time in NCAA history. At nationals, the Notre Dame DMR squad won the 2019 Indoor National Championship.
During the 2019 outdoor season, Hester helped qualify eight men for the NCAA Outdoor Track and Field National Championships and he assisted Yared Nuguse to a national championships in the 1,500-Meter Run.
A native of Indianapolis, Indiana, Hester graduated from Purdue in 2018 where he competed in cross country and track & field. A four-year letter recipient at Purdue, Hester was a member of what was at the time, the highest Big Ten and NCAA Regional finish in over 20 years at Purdue.
