Britton Koestler is in his third season with LeTourneau University men's and women's cross country.
This will be Koestler's second season as the head coach for the YellowJackets after spending the 2015 season as an assistant coach.
In his first season at LeTourneau, Koestler and the men's cross country team matched a program-best effort with a second-place finish at the 2015 ASC Cross Country Championships for the fourth-straight top three finish in program history. The YellowJackets were led by Taber Miyauchi and Daniel Moses, who earned first and second team all-ASC honors, respectively. Miyauchi went on to earn co-Male Athlete of the Year honors at LeTourneau and first team CoSIDA (College Sports Information Directors of America) Academic All-American and All-District honors. He became the program's top finisher in school history at the NCAA South/Southeast Regional meet with a 60th-place finish in route to leading LeTourneau to its best team finish (18th). On the women's side, Whitney Judd picked up all-ASC honors and ran at the NCAA South/Southeast Regional meet for a third-straight year.
Off the course, senior Luke Funk was recognized as the American Southwest Conference Men's Cross Country Scholar-Athlete of the Year recipient and the LeTourneau Male Scholar-Athlete of the Year.
Prior to joining the YellowJackets, Koestler worked for the University of North Texas as a volunteer assistant distance coach. While at UNT, the men’s Cross Country team matched a second place finish in 2013 and earned a first place finish in 2014 finishing in the top 10 at the Regional Division meet twice. The Women’s team captured two third place titles and a top 15 finish in the regional division meet twice. Koestler also helped the Mean Green track and field team to a fifth place finish for the men and a sixth place finish for the women in both the indoor and outdoor seasons. Having a stunning Distance recruitment year for the Mean Green for the 2013-2014 season, Koestler also helped with the strength and conditioning for the distance runners.
Coach Koestler also has many years of distance coaching at the University of Louisiana at Monroe where he also competed for 5 years as a division I student athlete. Koestler volunteered for Peak performance Track club as the Distance coach and also worked with Neville High School’s distance and mid-distance programs. Koestler also coached at St. Fredrick’s Catholic High School as the head cross country and assistant track and field coach during his time at ULM.
Koestler currently holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology from Louisiana-Monroe with a level One CrossFit certification in Olympic lifting in addition to the following certifications: USATF Level One Certification for US Track and Field; USTFCCCA Level One Track and Cross Country certification; First Aid and AED Certification.
Prior to University Competition Coach Koestler was a 4 time varsity cross country/track and field athlete setting the distance medley relay record for Northwest High school in 2007. He was also ranked in the top 24 best Texas miles in 2007. He competed and qualified for the regional cross country championships in 5-5A 4 years in a row and twice in Track and Field. Upon graduation, a newspaper artical was written about the distance program and how it had thrived due to Coach Willie Server (coach during years 2004-2007) developing a distance program and Koestler making the program known and starting the movement.
