Huckle will serve as an advisor starting on January 1, 2022.
By Jay Ashdown and Aidan Joly, Griffin Editors
Canisius College athletic department announced Thursday that cross country head coach Nate Huckle will “transition his post ... to serve in an advisory role for the program” effective on Dec. 31.
Huckle will not serve just as an advisor for cross country, but all of the programs on campus as well. He will still be around the cross country team on a regular basis, focusing on distance runners during indoor and outdoor track season. Huckle also plans to pursue a degree in sports psychology at Canisius next fall. He has served as the head coach of the cross country program since 2011, one of the longest-tenured head coaches on campus.
“I would like to thank Nate for his 10 years of dedication and service to the college, to our cross country/track programs and to our student-athletes,” Athletic Director Bill Maher said. “As one of our veteran head coaches, Nate has helped transform our program from solely a cross country team into a year-round cross country and track program which serves a greater number of student-athletes with year-round training opportunities. … I wish Nate nothing but continued success as he focuses on his family and transitions into the new role for our program.”
Huckle said, “I am grateful for the opportunity to take a step back and focus on my family and my own professional development, while continuing to assist our program with my knowledge and experience.”
This comes nearly six months after Huckle was named in a lawsuit against Huckle, Maher and the college by three former female student-athletes on the cross country team, alleging that female athletes on the cross country team endured discrimination, harassment and sexual assault: it also alleged a “hostile environment which promoted and condoned other forms of sexual abuse against female athletes, including sexual assault and rape.”
Assistant coach Tyler Scheving will take over the cross country program on an interim basis starting Jan. 1, 2022. He joined the cross country program in 2019 and before that served as an assistant coach at the University at Buffalo.