Volga City & Iowa State University 1984
Track coach at Iowa State University. Has contributed countless hours to track and field and to college and high school athletics in Iowa. Clinic Director for the Championship Productions Iowa Track Coacches Clinic held annually in Ames. Bill Bergan, a Cedar Falls, IA native, came to Iowa State University as head cross country and assistant track coach in 1971 and became head track coach in 1976. Bergan’s teams won 10 Big Eight Cross Country team titles and claimed the 1989 and 1994 NCAA Cross Country National Championships. Bergan’s ISU track teams captured 15 conference titles, including 10 of the last 15 Big Eight outdoor track crowns. Iowa State was second at the 1990 and 1991 NCAA meets and third in 1993. The list of athletes who excelled under Bergan include16 Olympians from six different nations. Bergan’s student athletes achieved All-America honors 110 times and captured 163 Big Eight Conference individual titles.
Bergan, a graduate of Northern Iowa, where he lettered in track and cross country, first coached six seasons at Waterloo Columbus High School. A former NCAA cross country and track and field coach of the year, he earned district coach-of-the-year honors 19 times. Bergan is a member of the ISU Cardinal Key organization, recognizing outstanding leadership, character, scholarship and service to ISU. The Drake Relays Hall of Fame member was named to the Iowa Association of Track Coaches Hall of Fame in 1984, the University of Northern Iowa Hall of Fame (for his athletic accomplishments) in 1997, the ISU Hall of Fame in 2001 and the USTFCCCA Hall of Fame in 2006. Bill is the President/CEO and founder of Championship Productions, Inc., an Ames-based company founded by Bergan in 1976 that has grown to become one of the leading producers and distributors of coaching and athlete instructional videos and DVDs in the world. Championship Productions has worked closely with the IATC, of which Bill was a founding member, to bring forth one of the leading Track & Field/Cross Country coaches clinics in the nation in Ames, IA. For the past several years, Bill has been the volunteer Track & Field director for the Iowa Special Olympics and has also volunteered his time to be the Track & Field Director for the first-ever National Special Olympics Games in the summer of 2006.
Bergan resides in Ames with his wife Karen. They raised four children; three of them are married, and also have (as of 2006) four grandchildren. Bill and Karen are also known as the “parents” of Marc Kitchen, a long-time Bergan family friend and former Special Olympian. With Marc Kitchen, the Bergans were named the Outstanding Family of the Year at the 2001 Iowa Special Olympics.