Mike Sergent Position: Assistant Coach (Throws) Experience: 12th Season Alma Mater: Virginia Tech, 1992

Mike Sergent enters his 12th season with the Gamecock track and field program in 2009. His primary responsibilities are coaching the throwers and coordinating the strength and conditioning program.

Sergent has coached 18 All-Americans, 17 NCAA qualifiers, 13 SEC champions and five NCAA champions at South Carolina.

Sergent had a memorable first season as he coached Lisa Misipeka and Brad Snyder to a total of four individual championships. Misipeka took home titles in the 20-pound weight and the hammer, while Snyder swept the indoor and outdoor titles in the shot put. Snyder repeated in 1999 when Sergent coached him to the indoor shot put title for the second-consecutive year.

In 2008, four of Sergent's throwers qualified for the NCAA East Region meet. Aimee Kodat and Michael Zajac, both in their first seasons competing, performed well at peak times during the year to qualify. Kodat finished seventh at the SEC Outdoor Championships in the discus to continue Sergent's streak of having a thrower score at the meet every season since he has been at Carolina. Sophomore Erik Heymann and junior Jason Cook also qualified with Cook earning bronze medal honors at the SEC Outdoor Championships.

Sergent has also seen success in coaching his student-athletes on the international stage. In 2003, former Gamecock and NCAA champion Dawn Ellerbe reached the World Championships in Paris under Sergent's tutelage. He also worked with Ellerbe in 2002 to help her become the USATF national runner-up in both the weight and hammer throws. She finished the year ranked seventh in the world in the hammer and also ranked eighth nationally in the discus throw.

In 2001, two of Sergent's former student-athletes, Snyder and Misipeka, along with Ellerbe, traveled to Edmonton, Canada, for the 2001 World Championships. In his third year at South Carolina, Sergent coached Candy Mitchell, Bert Sorin and Ryan Harrison through the U.S. Olympic trials. At the 2000 Olympic Games, Snyder, Misipeka and Michelle Fournier all competed.

In 1999, Sergent's student-athletes won four SEC titles. Fournier, an academic All-American and NCAA runnerup, was awarded an NCAA Post-Graduate Scholarship. Misipeka also won a bronze medal at the 1999 World Championships - the school's first in a major international meet.

Prior to coaching at Carolina, Sergent was an assistant coach at his alma mater, Virginia Tech, for five years. At Tech, he assisted in one Metro and four Atlantic 10 Conference championship teams from 1993 to 1997.

Sergent holds a bachelor's degree in exercise physiology and a master's degree in sports management from Virginia Tech. He was a 1992 All-American and Olympic trials qualifier in the hammer.

Sergent's wife, Karen, is a graduate of the USC School of Nursing, and they have a 17-year-old daughter named Kelsey.