Bryan Wilkins has the longest tenure of any coach on staff, having started working at SCC/Vanguard in 1988. Wilkins is an unbelievably committed coach for both the men's and women's cross-country teams and the track and field program. His athletes have succeeded on and off the course and the track. He has coached 118 NAIA All-Americans and 151 NAIA Scholar-Athletes during his career at Vanguard. He received the NAIA's prestigious Coach of Character Award in 2010 and was named the West Region Women's Coach of the Year by the U.S. Track & Field Cross Country Coaches association in 2023. Ten different squads coached by Wilkins have been selected for the NAIA Team of Character award, an honor given to teams that demonstrate a high level of integrity, respect, responsibility, sportsmanship, and servant leadership.
Cross-Country:
Under his guidance, three men's teams (1994, 1995, and 2007) and three women's teams (2018, 2019, and 2021) have qualified and competed nationally, finishing as high as twenty-second. Seven of his women's teams have been ranked in the NAIA top 25, and the Lions made National Championship team appearances in 2004, 2005, 2006, 2018, 2019, and 2021. In 2018, the Vanguard Women captured the GSAC Championship – a first for both the program and Wilkins. The women repeated as GSAC champs in 2019 and Coach Wilkins was announced as the GSAC Women's Cross Country Coach of the Year in both seasons.
Track & Field:
Wilkins was named the GSAC Track and Field Coach of the Year in 2009 and the Women's Track and Field Coach of the Year in 2022. His teams were consistently among the best in the competitive Golden State Athletic Conference, highlighted by the first GSAC team title in program history (male or female) in 2022, as the women brought home the gold. He was named the GSAC Women's Coach of the Year for that and then guided the squad to a repeat championships in 2023 and 2024. Wilkins has had five NAIA Individual National Champions with Kevin Carlson winning the Outdoor High Jump in 1996, Winston Lawson earning the Indoor Heptathlon title in 2018, Amanda Chan capturing the Indoor High Jump in 2019, Keili Dorn winning the Indoor 5,000m championship in 2022, and Brooke Dalgity, Eryn Burke, Jordan Burke, and Elizabeth Betten winning the 4x400m Relay in 2024.
Running Career:
Bryan grew up in the American Heartland in Nebraska. and his passion for running developed at a young age. Wilkins found a measure of success in the longer race and from there his “distance career” was launched. He competed in cross country and track & field for the Islanders of Grand Island Senior High from 1976 to 1979 where he set a school record in the 3200 meters (9:39). He also finished 22nd at the State Meet in cross country and 6th in the 3200 meters at the State Meet in Track & Field his senior year. Following graduation, Wilkins attended Evangel College in Springfield, Missouri where he led the Crusaders as the top runner in cross country for two years. Upon graduation in 1983, earning his Bachelor's degree in Business Administration, Wilkins moved to Costa Mesa. He accepted the head cross country coaching position at Southern California College in the summer of 1988 and landed his first official recruit (Sherri Hall) shortly after.
As a post-collegiate athlete, Wilkins competed for three different club teams in Southern California and recorded personal bests of 4:03 (1500), 14:42 (5k), and 24:44 (8k).
