Rollie Geiger enters his 28th season as NC State’s head cross country coach and architect of one of the nation’s premier cross country programs. During Geiger’s tenure as an assistant and head coach, NC State’s teams have built a tradition matched by few programs nationally, combining to win 32 Atlantic Coast Conference team championships and 19 individual ACC championships. Geiger-coached cross country runners have earned All-ACC honors 158 times and been named All-America 46 times. His teams have finished in the national top 10 a remarkable 21 times. Three Wolfpack runners—Julie Shea, Betty Springs and Suzie Tuffey—won five individual national championships between them.

In addition, Geiger has won six conference championships in track and field since taking over that program in 1984, giving him a conference-record 38 ACC championship teams. NC State has won 70 ACC team titles since Geiger arrived in 1979, and his teams have accounted for 54 percent of them. He has won 31 ACC Coach of the Year awards in track and cross country.

NC State AD Lee Fowler rewarded Geiger in the spring of 2007 with a promotion to assistant director of athletics.

Geiger’s women’s cross country teams — he turned over the women’s team to Laurie Henes in 2006 — finished among the top 10 at the AIAW or NCAA Championships 15 times, winning it all in 1979 and 1980. The Pack finished second in 1978, 1987 and most recently in 2001, while posting third-place finishes in 1983, 1984, and 1985. The women won seven consecutive ACC championships from 1987-93 and won 20 of 26 ACC titles from the time women’s cross country was added as a championship sport in 1978 until Geiger turned the program over to Henes in 2006.

Geiger’s men’s cross country teams have won 13 ACC championships, the latest coming in 2006. The ‘06 championship was the program’s 10th in the last 13 years, and its 12th in the last 17. At the national level, Geiger’s men’s teams have earned nine national top 10 finishes, including an eighth-place finish in 1998, a third-place finish in 1999, a ninth-place finish in 2001, and a 10th-place finish in 2003.

In tandem with one another, NC State’s men’s and women’s cross country teams have come to define the sport in the Atlantic Coast Conference. In 1991, Geiger led both teams to ACC championships, the first time any ACC school won both championships in the same year. His teams repeated their ACC dual titles in 1992, then went on a run of absolute dominance, winning both the men’s and women’s championships six times in eight years — 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 2001 and 2002. With Geiger leading the men and Henes coaching the women, the Wolfpack won its ninth dual conference championships in  2006, giving NC State nine dual ACC championships in a span of 16 years. NC State remains the only ACC school ever to win a dual conference crown in cross country.

When Geiger was named ACC men’s Coach of the Year in 2002, it marked the eighth consecutive season he was named ACC Coach of the Year for either the men, women, or both. He was named men’s Coach of the Year again in 2004 and 2006. In all, Geiger has been named the conference coach of the year 26 times in cross country, and an unprecedented 31 times combined in cross country and track and field.

In 1987, the Cross Country Journal recognized NC State as having the nation’s outstanding collegiate cross country program. The Wolfpack programs earned that distinction with their second-place finish in the women’s NCAA Championships, and a fifth-place finish at the men’s nationals.

In the classroom, Geiger’s runners have exemplified what student-athletes are supposed to be. There were 38 members of last year’s cross country and track teams that earned spots on the  ACC Honor Roll. Both the men’s and women’s cross country teams earned Academic All-America status from the United States Cross Country Coaches Association in 2000, 2005, 2006 and 2007. The women also earned the distinction in 2001, 2002, 2003 and 2004.

This is not a recent trend. Geiger’s program has produced numerous Academic All-Americans, and Wolfpack runners have been regular recipients of the NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship. In 2007-08, John Crews, Stephen Furst and Tibor Vegh all won NCAA Postgraduate scholarships, and 13 NC State cross country runners have won the NCAA scholarship in the last 11 years. Previous winners in that time include Beth Kraft, Katie Sabino, Chris Seaton, Kristin Price, Kristen Hall, Joe Wirgau, Robbie Howell, Chan Pons, Amy Beykirch and Christy Nichols.

Following the 1991-92 season, All-America runner David Honea received the prestigious Walter Byers Award as the nation’s premier scholar-athlete, in addition to the Jim Weaver Award and the National Science Fellowship Award for his academic accomplishments. All-American Laurie Gomez-Henes won the ACC’s Marie James Scholarship as well as an NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship.

Well-known on the national level, Geiger coached at the Olympic Festival and in 1987 was named coach of the U.S. National Team for the World Cross Country Championships in Auckland, New Zealand. He has been a featured speaker at the U.S. Olympic Training Center and a member of the U.S. Olympic Development Committee for distance running.

Prior to coming to Raleigh, Geiger led a very successful prep program at Bradenton (Fla.) High School. A graduate of Kent State University, he was a three-time letterwinner in track and cross country, and majored in health education and psychology. Kent State’s Varsity K Hall of Fame honored Geiger as the distinguished alumnus in its inductee class of 2008.

Geiger is married to the former Betty Springs, one of the Wolfpack’s finest runners in school history.  She was inducted into the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame in 2003. They have a daughter, Rachel, 19, and son, Trey, 17.