Mircea Bogdan joins head coach Tony Veney in 2025-26 as the Assistant Coach for cross country and track & field. An accomplished distance runner and experienced coach, Bogdan will work primarily with the distance runners will assisting Veney with recruiting for the cross country and track & field teams.
Bogdan was an NCAA champion and Olympic qualifier as an athlete. He won the NCAA Division I title in the steeplechase in 2005 while a student-athlete at UTEP. He was the runner-up in 2005 and an All-American in cross country in 2003. He won 10 conference title to help UTEP to five consecutive team conference titles. His success continued on an international level as he qualified in the steeplechase for the 2008 Olympics for Romania and won 20 national championships in U20 and U23 competitions in Romania.
His success as an athlete immediately continued on as he began his coaching career at UTEP as a student coach in 200-07, helping the team to a ranking as high as No. 2 in the nation. He continued as a Graduate Assistant at Saint Francis, coaching the distance group. In his two seasons as a GA, he helped the team win an indoor conference title and two distance runners to individual titles on the track.
He spent a year at Loyola and the next at Western Illinois before landing at Loyola, where he stayed from 2016-2021. He coached 36 All-Missouri Valley Conference selections, led by NCAA National Championships qualifier Kevin White.Â
Bogdan continued his coaching career as the Director of Track & Field and Cross Country at Chicago State for one year before returning to his alma mater in 2023 as the Associate Head Coach for cross country. He coached two more athletes to qualify for the NCAA Championships as well as a Conference USA champion in the 10k.
He graduated from UTEP in 2007 and earned a Master's of Education at Saint Francis in 2009.
