Matt Lea
- Head Coach
- 2nd year
- Arizona ('03)
Phone: 805.493.3862
E-Mail: mlea@clunet.edu
Matt Lea returns as Head Coach of the men’s and women’s track and field and cross country teams. Lea was an assistant coach for two years before moving into his new role.
Lea has major coaching experience including two years at the NCAA Division I level at UC Santa Barbara. During his short time at UC Santa Barbara, he was part of the women’s Big West Conference Championship.
He has coached nine outdoor regional and national qualifiers, six Big West Champions and eight UC Santa Barbara School Records.
Under Lea’s direction, Kylie McCuen earned Big West Conference Female Athlete of the Year in 2005.
During the 2008 track and field season, Kyle Hansen became the SCIAC Champion in the long jump, 110-meter hurdles and the 400-meter hurdles. He qualified in all three events for the NCAA Championships and was named SCIAC Track and Field Male Athlete of the Year.
In 2009, Lea helped guide Hansen back to the NCAA Championships in Ohio, where Hansen finished 13th in the 400-meter hurdles.
An accomplished competitor in his own right, Lea was an NCAA All-American and in 2001 his 4x400 meter relay team finished fourth in the nation. He was also a four-time All-Pac 10 honoree in the 400-meter.
Off the track, Lea was recently named to the NCAA Division III Student-Athlete Advisory Committee as a national facilitator, where he helps younger student-athletes as well as administrators around the country develop better leadership abilities and skills that they can take back to their own institutions.
Lea earned a B.A. in Psychology from the University of Arizona in 2003.
He is married to Rebecca, a former hurdler from the University of Arizona. They have a son, Jordan, born on Nov. 23, 2009.
