The 2023 Indiana cross country schedule was released Monday afternoon, according to an IU Athletics release. Under first-year head coach Eric Heins, the Hoosiers will compete in four races on the road in the regular season in four different states spanning Sept. 1 to Oct. 13.
Indiana's season begins at the Redhawk Rumble hosted by Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. Two weekends later, the Hoosiers will travel to Terre Haute for the John McNichols Invitational Sept. 16 at Indiana State University. Indiana will journey north to Chicago Sept. 29 to compete in the Loyola Lakefront Invitational hosted by Loyola University-Chicago, then conclude the regular season Oct. 13 at the Arturo Barrios Invitational, hosted by Texas A&M University.
"This schedule gives us great opportunities to run on a variety of courses against some of the best teams in the NCAA," Heins said in Monday's release. The regular season schedule will prepare us for our ultimate goal of competing for a Big Ten Championship and a spot at the national championships."
The 2023 Big Ten Championships and NCAA Great Lakes Regional are set to take place at the Thomas Zimmer Championship Course at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The Badgers placed No. 6 and No. 19 in the men's 10-kilometer and women's 6-km team races, respectively, at the 2022 NCAA Cross Country Championships. Indiana's teams did not qualify.
The University of Virginia will host this year's NCAA Championships Nov. 18 in Charlottesville.
Following the conclusion of Indiana's 2022-2023 season, Ron Helmer retired after 16 seasons as Indiana's Director and head coach of the men's and women's track and field and cross country teams. On July 1, Ed Beathea began his tenure in Helmer's former position.
From 1996-2006, Beathea was an assistant track and field coach at Indiana, overseeing sprints, hurdles and relays. Within that time, Beathea coached 32 Big Ten Champions and 28 All-Americans, per the IU Athletics release on July 1, marking the start of Beathea's tenure.
From 2006 to 2012, Beathea had the same assistant role at Ohio State and became the head track and field coach with the Buckeyes from 2012-2014. Beathea returned to the Hoosiers from 2014-2023 as an associate track and field coach, once again specializing in sprints, hurdles and relays. Now as the director of Indiana’s program, Beathea will maintain this coaching role.
Beathea's first coaching staff announcement for the 2023 season was in May, when Heins was named the cross country head coach and associate track and field coach, specializing in distance.
Heins was named the Big Sky Conference Men's and Women’s Cross Country Coach of the Year nine and four times, respectively, at Northern Arizona University. In his final year coaching at Northern Arizona, Heins was named the 2016 NCAA DI Men’s Cross Country Coach of the Year. That season, the men’s team captured their first-ever national title.
The Northern Arizona men’s team was once again winners this past season in the NCAA Championships for the third straight season. For the past two seasons, Heins has been the cross country head coach at the University of Louisville. Indiana last team-qualified for the NCAA Championships in 2019, when both the men’s and women’s teams placed top-20.
