Elon’s Mark Elliston named CAA women’s outdoor track coach of the year
Mark Elliston earned his seventh CAA outdoor coach of the year award as Elon won its fifth title in six years and sent a record seven athletes to regionals.
Mark Elliston added another conference honor to Elon’s run of women’s track and field success on July 2, 2026, when he was named the Coastal Athletic Association women’s outdoor coach of the year. The award was his seventh outdoor coach-of-the-year honor, tying former George Mason coach Norm Gordon for the most in conference history.
The recognition came after another dominant outdoor championship for Elon, which won the CAA title in May with 193 points. Hampton finished second with 140 points, and Towson was third with 110, a spread that showed Elon separating itself from the rest of the league. Six Phoenix athletes won seven individual conference titles at the meet, and 15 Elon athletes combined for 20 All-CAA honors.
That depth carried Elon to its seventh CAA outdoor championship since 2015 and its fifth in the past six years. The title also completed a women’s triple crown for the 2025-26 season after Elon won the CAA cross country championship in October 2025 and the indoor track and field title in February 2026.
Elliston has been at Elon for 20 seasons in 2025-26 and has spent 37 seasons as a head coach at the NCAA Division I and II levels. In that span, he has guided the Phoenix to nine CAA track and field championships overall, including two indoor titles and seven outdoor titles. Elon’s athletics department said Elliston has earned the conference’s coach of the year award each time the program has won a conference title.
The outdoor championship also pushed Elon beyond the conference stage. After the CAA meet, the Phoenix qualified a program-record seven athletes for the NCAA East First Round, a sign that the team’s results translated into postseason opportunity against a wider field. Four programs were represented in the CAA women’s outdoor major awards, with Elon joining Hampton, North Carolina A&T and William & Mary in receiving recognition from the league’s head coaches.
For Alamance County, where Elon University sits at the center of the town’s athletic identity, the latest award underscored how a single program has stayed at the top of its league through repeated title runs rather than one breakthrough season. Elliston’s record-tying seventh outdoor honor put his name beside one of the conference’s most decorated coaching marks, and Elon’s 2026 results showed that the standard remains high.
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