William & Mary Director of Track & Field and Cross Country Alex Heacock ’09 announced the hiring of Omar Brown today to the post of assistant coach.
Brown will coach the sprinters and hurdlers for both the men’s and women’s programs, and will also assist with all recruiting and administrative areas of running the Tribe’s nationally-recognized program.
“Our staff and I are thrilled to have Omar Brown join the Tribe track & field program,” said Heacock. “We have high goals and aspirations for what this program can be, and Omar is someone who will make us better immediately as we continue to work to reach them. Our student-athletes will greatly benefit from his knowledge and experience as an athlete and a coach, and we are all excited to welcome him and his wife, Veronica, to the Tribe family.”
Brown has already made a name for himself in the coaching ranks, and comes to W&M from the state of Florida where he’s coached professionally for the last seven years with the Modern Sprints Track Club. As the head coach, he recruited and trained numerous professional and post-collegiate aspiring professional athletes for world-class competitions, including the IAAF World Championships, the Diamond League series, and the Olympics. Brown has coached athletes to multiple Olympic and World Championship medals, including gold in the women’s 200m at the 2011 IAAF World Outdoor Championships and in the women’s 60m at the 2012 IAAF World Indoor Championships, as well as bronze in the women’s 100m at the 2012 London Olympics and silver in the women’s 4x100m relay at the 2016 Rio Olympics. Brown has also coached at Montverde Academy in Florida since 2015, where he helped numerous athletes to advance through the district, regional, and state championship meets.
Before his coaching career, Brown was an elite athlete, winning several international medals. He won silver in the 200m and bronze in the 100m at the 1999 World Youth Championships, and ran on Jamaica’s gold-medal 4x100m relay. In 2006, he won gold in the 200m at the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, leading to a world ranking of No. 9 by Track & Field News magazine. In between those years, he ran at the University of Arkansas, where he still ranks second all-time in the indoor 200m dash and fifth in the indoor 60m dash, as well as seventh in the outdoor 400m and eighth in the outdoor 200m. Brown was a three-time All-American for the Razorbacks during the 2004-05 season, taking fifth in the 200m and seventh in the 4x400m relay indoors, and finishing eighth in the 200m outdoors.
Brown graduated from the University of Arkansas with his degree in Information Systems in 2007, and earned his Masters of Science in Sports Management from Liberty University in 2018. He holds a USA Weight Lifting Certification, as well as IAAF Level 5 and USAT&F Level 3 Sprints Certifications. He married his wife, eight-time Olympic medalist Veronica Campbell Brown, in 2007, and recently moved to the Williamsburg area.
