2022 Hall of Fame Photo Gallery | Hall of Fame Bio

EUGENE, Ore. – Former cross country and track & field coach Dr. Heike McNeil was honored as part of the 2022 Hall of Fame Induction on Sunday.
 
In honor of the 50th anniversary of the passage of Title IX, Bushnell procured an all-female 2022 induction class for the Bushnell University Athletic Hall of Fame, including the 1975 volleyball team, the 2011 women's cross country team and McNeil.
 
Coach McNeil was the inaugural running coach for the Beacons, leading the men's and women's cross country program for 13 years and the men's and women's distance track teams for 11. She was the third-longest serving coach of any sport in school history before her retirement in 2019. 

The Beacon Cup, given each year to the team that best represents Bushnell athletics on the field, in the classroom, and though their character, was renamed the Dr. Heike McNeil Cup in 2019. Her teams won the trophy nine times in 13 years.

During her career, McNeil developed Bushnell into one of the premier distance running programs in the NAIA. Her teams were consistently ranked in the top-25 nationally and from 2011 to 2018 at least one gender qualified for seven straight NAIA National Championships. McNeil was the architect for Bushnell's first Cascade Collegiate Conference Championship in any sport, winning the 2014 title. It was the first of three straight for the Beacons, with McNeil being voted the CCC Coach of the Year three times.  

Under her guidance the Beacons finished fourth in the NAIA in 2011, third in 2014, and second in 2016. The 2015 season will go down as the best ever with Bushnell collecting their first ever NAIA National Championship with McNeil being named the NAIA Coach of the Year. 
 
During her career she recruited and coached 59 All-Cascade Conference athletes and 11 Individual CCC Champions, along with an incredible 30 All-American performances and over 60 NAIA Scholar Athletes.
 
On hand to induct McNeil was Bushnell Athletic Director Corey Anderson. He said, "Heike's humility, her work ethic, her resiliency, and her drive to succeed are above and beyond. When we hired her, she brought to the table the ability to combine all of her strengths as a professor and a coach, and ran with it. What she was able to do on our campus, not only with our runners, but any of her students was to make them better.
 
"What she has done at Bushnell, building and sustaining success are nothing short of amazing. Her team reached the pinnacle of sport with the 2015 national championship, but the foundational success of her program have been evident with strong conference and national results before and after that accomplishment.
 
"Bushnell's cross country and track teams have always represented Heike's foundation of hard work, discipline and sportsmanship while always displaying their Christian faith in the community and in competition. The respect and admiration that the Bushnell cross country and track program has developed is unprecedented during this NAIA era of Beacon athletics."
 
McNeil said, "coaching has been one of the most humbling and challenging experiences of my life. Coaching is about people, getting to know your athletes and getting to know what makes them tick, to get them to perform well and unlock their full potential. Coaching is a privilege and I have been blessed to stand on the sidelines and watch your athletes literally chase their dreams is incredible.

McNeil became the fifth individual woman to be inducted into the Bushnell Athletics Hall of Fame, joining Cassie (Bishop) Ahrens, Brooke (Stribling) Crow, Kasey (Sconce) Cutsforth, and Jeanette (Scofield) McHarness.