Eastern Illinois University

Tom Akers

POSITION: Director of Men's and Women's Track & Field
ALMA MATER: Northern Iowa, 1979
YEARS AT EIU: 15th year

Tom Akers enters his 15th year as the head coach at Eastern Illinois University helping the Panthers create one of the dominant track programs in the history of the Ohio Valley Conference. 

Akers is the director of the Panthers track and field/cross country programs while serving as the head coach for both the men’s and women’s track and field programs. He also coaches middle distance, hurdles and sprints as his specialty area. 

Since helping the Panthers transition into the OVC for the 1997 season, EIU has won 11 of 13 OVC Indoor Track Championships and 10 of 13 OVC Outdoor Championships. Each time Akers has been named the OVC Coach of the Year. 

In addition to winning those team titles, Akers has also coached 13 athletes who have captured the OVC Track and Field Athlete of the Year award including 2009 Indoor and Outdoor Track Athlete of the Year Zye Boey, 2007 Indoor Track Athlete Award winner Daniel Strackeljahn and 2006 Field Athlete winner Obe Eruteya. 

He served as the interim head coach in spring of 1995 before being named head coach for the 1996 season. During his first two seasons EIU competed in the Mid-Continent Conference sweeping the Indoor and Outdoor championships both seasons. 

He was promoted to Director of Track/Field and Cross Country in 2002. During his tenure as head coach, EIU has had four Division I All-Americans along with more than 100 individual OVC conference champions 

From 1983-90, Akers was an EIU assistant coach when the Panthers won six indoor/outdoors Mid-Continent Conference championships. He was responsible for recruiting and coaching Eastern’s first NCAA Division I National Champion, Jim Maton from Shelbyville, who was a four time NCAA All-American in 1987-88. Maton won the 800 meter run (1:49.3) at the 1988 NCAA indoor championship. A multiple Mid-Continent Conference champion and league ‘Athlete of the Year’, Maton holds most school records in the middle distance events. 

Akers also recruited Dan Steele from Sherrard High School. He was a two time Division I All-American and national champion in the 400 hurdles in 1992. His twin brother, Darrin, was an All-American decathlete in 1992. Both were members of the USA Olympic Bobsled Team that competed in the 1998 Nagano Winter Olympics, and then Dan was a member of the Bronze Medal winning bobsled team at the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics. 

Eastern’s most recent All-Americans are javelin thrower Ron White (2000 & 2002) and hurdler Gabe Spezia, who earned his honors twice in the 1999 and 2000 NCAA indoor meets in the high hurdles. White placed sixth nationally in 2002. 

In 2009 EIU climbed as high as No. 33 in the Indoor National rankings as senior David Holm and freshman Zye Boey both advanced to the NCAA Indoor National Championships. Boey would later advance to the NCAA Outdoor National Championships finishing off one of the most successful track seasons in EIU history. 

From 1990-94, Akers was a member of the department of Exercise and Sport Sciences at the University of Arizona. During his tenure there, he served as the assistant track coach at Palo Verde High School in 1992, and then started the boys/girls track program at Catalina Foothills High School in Tucson. 

Akers received his undergraduate degree from the University of Northern Iowa in 1979. While there he was a two-time co-captain and set school and conference records in the 110 and 400 meter hurdles. His conference record in the 110 stood for 17 years until broken in 1996. An eight-time national qualifier, he earned 1979 All-American honors in the 400 hurdles. 

He and his wife, Joelyn, have two sons, Clayton and Blake.