Delta State seeks graduate assistant strength coach for 2026 season

Delta State University is seeking a graduate assistant strength and conditioning coach for a 10-month appointment that starts Aug. 1 in Cleveland, a tuition-stipended job that can place a young coach inside NCAA Division II athletics at the start of the 2026 season.

The university says graduate assistantships provide tuition support in exchange for 15 to 27.5 hours of work each week, depending on the position. The work must be completed on campus in Cleveland, including for students in online programs if they are able to work there in person. Delta State says it funds more than 60 graduate assistant slots each year, most GA positions are posted in June and July, and appointments can be renewed for a second year after a successful evaluation at the end of year one.

For Delta State graduates or local applicants looking to break into college coaching, the opening sits inside a larger athletic structure that relies on graduate assistants as part of day-to-day operations. Delta State competes in the Gulf South Conference and sponsors 13 varsity sports, with the strength and conditioning operation supporting football, men’s and women’s basketball, cross country, golf and cheer. The football support staff page also ties a strength and conditioning role to football, baseball and swimming and diving, while the 2026 football coach list already shows Charlie Lott and Andrew Thornton as graduate assistants.

The strength program is led by Altman Biggs, whom athletics director Mike Kinnison hired on July 9, 2024. Biggs came to Delta State after working as assistant strength and conditioning coach at Alcorn State University in Lorman and spending 2019 through 2023 as an intern at Mississippi State University in Starkville, where he worked with men’s and women’s basketball and football.

For Cleveland, the job is more than a campus posting. It offers a way to keep trained sports performance staff close to the Statesmen program while giving an emerging coach tuition help, on-campus experience and a direct route into the profession.