The Creighton cross country program received an off-season makeover, marked by the hiring of two new coaches. The changes came following head coach John Wissler’s resignation in late March after six seasons with the program.

Former Creighton assistant coach Chas Davis was chosen to lead the 2009 cross country campaign as the new head coach.

“It was a fantastic opportunity as a young coach to begin his career as a head coach. Many times as an assistant coach you’re not making the important decisions or calling the important shots,” Davis said.

“Although that’s the role of an assistant coach, a lot of times as a head coach it can be a lot more fun and certainly comes with a lot of pressure and some good stress. But you are obviously in charge of making all the calls, and at this point in my career after four years as an assistant, it was a great opportunity to finally be the one making the call.”

He made the trek back to Omaha after spending a year as the volunteer assistant coach with the women’s cross country and track and field programs at Oregon State University.

“I wouldn’t be half the coach I am now if I hadn’t spent that year at Oregon State learning about the PAC-10 and seeing how it worked,” Davis said. “Seeing what had to happen, I kind of knew what had to happen, but seeing it in action at that level helped me to bring back a bunch of better experiences for our kids back here at Creighton because I have that experience.”

Davis made an impact of his own on the Oregon State program.

“You would think that having coached collegiate athletics for 29 years you would have seen it all, but I learned so much from him,” Oregon State head coach Kelly Sullivan said. “He’s very knowledgeable on the sport, and I’ve always tried to surround myself with bright coaches. I took a lot from the energy he brought to our program and I would like to thank him for that.”

On July 28 Davis hired Marty Kinsey to be assistant coach of both cross country programs.

“When I saw Chas come up on the Web site as the new head coach while he was in Oregon, I started e-mailing him and touching base with him,” Kinsey said. “He expressed that there were several people interested in the position, so I just stayed on top of it. I was really eager to get back into coaching, especially at the Division 1 level.”

Kinsey, much like Davis, has had experience as an assistant coach, though on a different level of the sport. Kinsey was assistant track coach at Granada High School in California.

“The program at Granada is pretty high-level for high schools with several state competitors,” Kinsey said. “I guess you could say the tenacity and the will to succeed on such a big stage, it being California cross country, has definitely helped me bring a lot of experience to the Creighton program.”