Track and field director and coach Tom Akers announced his retirement following the 2018 outdoor season.

Akers has coached men’s and women’s track and field for 23 years, and he is leaving behind a legacy of the most successful track and field programs in the school’s history. Since joining the Ohio Valley Conference, Eastern has won a combined 45 indoor and outdoor championships.

Akers has also been honored as the OVC Coach of the Year 45 times, and under his coaching, the men’s team has won 32 conference championships, and the women’s team has won 13 titles.

To wrap up the 2017-2018 indoor season, the men’s team placed second under Akers. The women earned third place, and senior Haleigh Knapp is moving on to the NCAA Indoor Championships in the high jump.

During Akers tenure, there have been 200 individual conference champions, 25 OVC athletes of the year, seven OVC freshmen of the year and seven conference MVPs. Akers has also coached nine first team All-Americans with the most recent coming in 2014.

Before taking over as the head coach and program director, Akers was the teams’ assistant coach from 1983-1990. During that time, the Panthers won six indoor and outdoor Mid-Continent Conference championships.

He is also the person who recruited Jim Maton, Eastern’s first NCAA Division I National Champion. Maton was a four time NCAA All-American, and he was a multiple Mid-Continent Conference champion and league Athlete of the Year.

Another successful athlete that emerged from Akers’ coaching was Zye Boey, a 200-meter dash runner who was one of the most award-winning athletes in school history. Boey earned first team All-American honors at both the NCAA Indoor National Championships and Outdoor National Championships in the 100-meter and 200-meter dashes. 

Boey also competed in the United States Olympic Trials in both races in 2012. He ended his Eastern career with five All-American honors, five OVC Track Athlete of the year honors, five conference championship MVP awards and OVC Freshman of the Year honors.

One of the biggest honors Akers has received as a coach came in 2015 when he was inducted into the Illinois Track and Field Hall of Fame.

Akers was a college track and field athlete at the University of Northern Iowa. While there, he set school and conference records in the 110- and 400-meter hurdles. His conference record in the 110-meter hurdles was not broken until 1996.

Akers was an eight-time nationals qualifier in college as well, and he was an All-American athlete in the 400-meter hurdles.

Aker’s final season with Eastern will begin at Southern Illinois-Carbondale on March 23. The Panthers will host the EIU Big Blue Classic for the team’s first home meet on March 30 to March 31.

The men’s team ended the indoor season winning two of its three home meets. The women’s team won one home meet this year.

Kaitlin Cordes can be reached at 581-2812 or krcordes@eiu.edu