OXFORD, Miss. – Ole Miss track & field and cross country head coach Connie Price-Smith has announced the addition of two new staff members, assistant coach Louis Vazquez and recruiting coordinator Bree Bennett, the promotion of Dempsey McGuigan to assistant coach, and the promotion of cross country coach Adam Smith to associate head coach for cross country.
Smith, who is also the assistant coach for distance on the track & field squad, is coming off a strong first season in Oxford in 2022, when he coached the Rebel men to their ninth consecutive NCAA team berth and a narrow finish in one of the closest SEC Championship races in conference history. In 2022, Smith also coached individual NCAA qualifier Ryann Helmers, who put together one of the best seasons in Rebel women’s history en route to her at-large national qualifying performance.
McGuigan has been promoted to assistant coach to work alongside John Smith and the Rebel throwers for the upcoming 2024 indoor and outdoor track & field seasons. McGuigan has been part of the Ole Miss program for 10 years now, first as an All-American thrower from 2014-18, then as an undergraduate and graduate manager from 2018-22, and then as a coordinator of operations last season.
Vazquez returns to Ole Miss as an assistant coach alongside Adam Smith and the Rebel cross country teams after two years at UMass Lowell as an assistant coach. With the River Hawks, Vazquez helped lead UMass Lowell to five of the six possible conference championship crowns during his time there across the cross country, indoor and outdoor seasons in 2021-22 and 2022-23 – including a men’s triple crown last season. Vazquez worked at Ole Miss on a volunteer basis from 2019-21, where he assisted in the Rebel men’s 2019 SEC Cross Country team championship and several of the best national team finishes in program history.
Bennett joins Ole Miss as its recruiting coordinator after two seasons working in operations with Purdue track & field from 2021-23. Bennett has nearly a decade working alongside students and student-athletes, with stops along the way at Mississippi State as director of operations from 2019-21, Minnesota as a coordinator of learning services from 2018-10, at Maynard Jackson High School as a coach and academic advisor from 2015-18, and as a volunteer assistant at Georgia in…
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