John Millar Staff

One of the top sprint and hurdle coaches in the world, John Millar enters his 13th season at Notre Dame and has developed the Irish women[apos]s sprint group into a force in the BIG EAST Conference. Millar?s 12-year stay at Notre Dame, which also includes serving as the speed coach for all Notre Dame athletic teams, is the third-longest tenure of any current Irish assistant coach.

The native of Toronto, Canada, took a break from his coaching duties at Notre Dame in early March of 1999 to serve as the head coach of the United States women?s track squad, which earned eight medals at the 1999 World Indoor Championships in Maebashi, Japan.

Millar is a seasoned veteran of coaching athletes both on the national and international levels. During a six-year stint at Texas, he coached 96 NCAA All-Americans, including 10 national champions, and helped guide the Lady Longhorns to four national titles.

In his first year with the Irish, Millar began the process of enhancing the Notre Dame sprint corps which culminated in three school records in the 55 and 200 meters along with the 4×100 relay. He guided Raghib Ismail to a second-place finish in the 1991 NCAA indoor championships and the fastest collegiate 55-meter time of the season. Millar also coached two-time All-American Allen Rossum to seventh-place finishes in the 55-meter dash at the 1995 and 1997 NCAA indoor track championships and, more recently, hurdler Errol Williams was an All-American in both indoor (55-meter hurdles) and outdoor track (110-meter hurdles) in 1998.

Millar has also developed a strong group in the women[apos]s sprint lane. He helped develop [apos]02 graduate Liz Grow into Notre Dame[apos]s first women[apos]s All-American sprinter, as Grow was a fixture at the NCAA indoor and outdoor meets during her four years on the team.

Millar[apos]s sprint group made a huge splash on the national scene in 2002. The women[apos]s 4×400 relay of Ayesha Boyd, Kristen Dodd, Grow and Kymia Love qualified for the NCAA Indoor Championships, becoming the first women[apos]s sprint relay to achieve that distinction. In the outdoor season, the same group took a step further, earning All-America honors by finishing fifth in the nation at the NCAA Championships in Baton Rouge, La. Millar[apos]s 4×100, 4×400 (outdoor) and 4×400 (indoor) all set school records last season and the 4×100 group has won the last two BIG EAST Championships events.

The development of the sprint group allowed Notre Dame to capture its first-ever BIG EAST team title in 2002 at the league indoor meet. Millar and his fellow Irish coaches were named the BIG EAST Indoor Coaching Staff of the Year.

On the men[apos]s side, Millar guided freshman Selim Nurudeen to the BIG EAST Championship in the 110-meter hurdles at the league[apos]s outdoor meet in 2002.

Prior to his position at Texas, Millar was an assistant at Tennessee for two years where he worked with 1984 Olympic gold-medal hurdler Benita Fitzgerald-Brown. In addition, he serves as an assistant coach on the Canadian Olympic track staff and assisted in training world-class hurdler Mark McCoy. He also served as USA Track and Field?s national women?s hurdle coordinator, coach of the North team at the 1992 U.S. Olympic Festival and assistant coach of the USA Junior National Team at the 1993 Pan-Am Junior Championships.

Millar was head coach at York University in Toronto from 1981 to 1983 where he served as chief director for both the men?s and women?s programs in track and field. He led the school to a Canadian national championship in 1981. He also traveled to the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia, as a member of the Canadian track and field coaching staff.

Millar, a graduate of Western Ontario and master[apos]s degree recipient from Arizona State, and his wife, the former Lynn Haan, have a 16-year-old son, James, who is a middle-distance runner at St. Joseph High School in South Bend, Ind.