One of the busiest coaches in the UWG Athletics department would be head coach Ryan Bailey, who will begin his sixth season with the university in the 2022-23 athletics year.
The 2022-23 Indoor Track and Field season was potentially one of the greatest in UWG history. Bailey oversaw a team that had three athletes in Brandi Boddy, Paishence Collier, and Mia Culpepper become the first West Georgia athletes to outright qualify for the NCAA Division II National Track and Field Championships. Under Bailey's leadership Boddy was able to claim her second Most Valuable Field Performer at the GSC Indoor Track and Field Championships. Bailey also helped coach the Most Outstanding Freshman Performer at the GSC Indoor Track and Field Championships in T'oni Birden. Throughout both the indoor and outdoor season, Bailey helped many of his athletes set many new school records and also personal records. Bailey and his staff had over 10 of their athletes make either first or second team All-GSC.
Bailey was tasked with the direction of the Men's and Women's Cross-Country programs as well as Outdoor Track & Field when he was hired in the summer of 2017. He received an additional task in the 2019-20 athletic year, as West Georgia introduced Indoor Track & Field as the 14th sponsored sport at the university.
For 15 seasons he has be the head coach for men’s and women’s cross country teams, and was the women’s track head coach at Division I Mercer University in Macon. At Mercer, athletes under Bailey’s guidance set and re-set school records in distances ranging from 800 meters all the way to the 10-kilometer distance.
Beyond his coaching duties at Mercer, Bailey spent two years (2005-07) as the head of the school’s strength and conditioning program. In addition to his position at Mercer, Bailey has served as an instructor/lecturer for USA Track & Field, concentrating on sports psychology, bio-motor skills for speed/power, physiology, race walking, and endurance.
While Bailey’s teams and student-athletes succeeded on the track and course, they also excelled in the classroom. Both his men’s and women’s teams at Mercer received Atlantic Sun Conference and NCAA All-Academic honors. Also, in 2009 Bailey received NCAA public recognition for his program’s Academic Progress Rate (APR) being in top 10 percent of all Division I programs.
Bailey is an alumnus of Texas Tech University in Lubbock. He graduated Magna Cum Laude in 1996, earning a bachelor of science degree in Exercise and Sport Sciences.
