By ZILLAH REUKAUF ’29
Updated 11:50 a.m. EDT, 17 April 2026
Houghton University’s (HU) Cross Country (XC) team is buzzing with the appointment of their new head coach, Kari Elliot, and she is just as excited. As the team and Elliot prepare to make the change in leadership, there is a lot of excitement and nervousness. Liam Gilroy ‘29, a XC athlete, said, “I’m excited to see the opportunities she will bring and getting to see it come into play.” Another athlete, Amy Collins ‘29, expressed her excitement, “I’m most excited to have a female coach just for like, a new perspective […] I’m looking forward to building a relationship like I have with coach Hagar.”
Under all the excitement lies one question: Who is Elliot? Previous head coach of both Agnes Scott College and Oglethorpe University’s XC teams, Elliot is “a proven leader” according to Director of Athletics Matthew Webb. She began her athletic journey young, joining her brothers in athleticism, playing basketball, tennis and volleyball. For all these sports, Elliot practiced one thing in particular to stay in shape—running, which eventually led her to join track in middle school and XC in high school.
When college came around, Elliot had a plan. She was going to join the college basketball team; that was until she got cut. “It was like my world came to an end,” said Elliot. Dusting off her feet and moving on, she walked on to the college’s XC team, and now she has been running for the last twenty years.
Now that Elliot is making her way to HU, she said she would like to bring her expertise to a college she “really believes in,” as HU’s Christian heritage and Wesleyan tradition enticed her decision to coach here.
With any new coach comes changes, but Elliot isn’t looking to come in with a whole new regime right away. Instead, she’s looking to get to know her athletes, take things slow and build a relationship with them so she can understand and push them in ways that build them individually. When it comes to winning, Elliot said, “I really do enjoy winning, I’m a very competitive person.” She strives for excellence for God’s glory in herself and in her athletes.
With faith standing in the center of HU, Elliot is happy to have a chance to coach in a place where she can express her faith more openly. Elliot believes that faith shouldn’t change from location to location and has always done her best to express her faith in secular environments too. “I think that the most genuine signs of faith are probable in the heart and how we treat people, and I think that that’s how I have and how I hope to lead,” said Elliot. ★
