Men's Track and Field | 9/25/2025 10:16:00 AM
September 25, 2025-Emporia State head track and field coach
Seth Mischke has announced the addition of Tim Byers to the Hornet coaching staff. A veteran coach with nearly three decades of experience, Byers has been the Meet Director for the University of Kansas track and field since August of 2022.
"Coach Byers' knowledge base and experience in the sports of track and field and cross country make him a great fit for our programs," said Mischke. "Our goal is to try and produce well-balanced teams' year in and year out that are capable of challenging at conference championships and consistently having a competitive presence at the National level and Coach Byers will have a great impact on our ability to attain those goals.
Byers will work with the sprinters and jumpers at Emporia State.
"I am very excited for the assistant coach opportunity Coach Mischke and Emporia State have given to me," said Byers. "This program has such a rich track & field and cross country tradition. I can't wait to start contributing to such a high caliber program."
As Meet Director at Kansas he oversaw all of the Jayhawks home events in track and field and cross country, including the third-longest continuously running track event in the United States, the Kansas Relays. Last year the KU Relays played host to over 5,500 entries, 4,630 individuals, 106 colleges, 447 high schools, and 906 relay race entries.
Prior his time at KU, Byers served as the Director of Cross Country and Track & Field at Baker University from2014-2022. He led the Wildcats to nine Heart of America Conference championships including four men's track and field championships, three men's cross-country championships and two women's track and field championships. Byers was a six-time Heart of America Coach of the Year and was a two-time nominee for NAIA Coach of the Year.
In his final year in Baldwin, Baker sent both the men's and women's cross country teams to the NAIA National Championships for the first time in school history. Coach Byers had at least one student-athlete compete in every National Championship possible during his 28-year tenure and has also had every team earn at least a 3.0 GPA in his time at Baker.
In his 28 years as a collegiate cross country and track coach, Byers has been a part of 29 conference championships, four NCAA top four finishes and coached two individual national champions - in the women's javelin and men's race walk.
Byers coaching career has spanned nearly every level with stops at the NAIA, NCAA Division I, NCAA Division II and Division III levels.
He has served as the head track and field coach at Ottawa University and Simpson College. He was also an assistant at Park College, Wisconsin-La Crosse, Wartburg College and North Dakota State.
Byers graduated from Park University in 1997 with a BA in Sports Medicine and a MS in Human Performance/Exercise Science from the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse in 1998.
Tim served in the Kansas Air National Guard and is a United States Air Force Desert Storm Veteran where he served as a fire fighter.
Tim and his wife Lori have been married for over 30 years. They have two sons Tre and Will.Â
Â
