Ermelinda Spies enters her eighth season as the McPherson men's and women's jumps and sprints coach in 2019.
Spies' jumpers have recorded 21 first team All-KCAC and two NAIA All-America honors and have broken six school records. During her tenure, Spies has coached 20 All-KCAC performers.
Prior to McPherson, Spies spent seven years as an assistant at Pittsburg State (Kan.) where the Gorillas had three NCAA runner-ups, 18 All-Americans, 62 national qualifiers, 13 MIAA individual conference champions and 12 school records broken. As a team, Pittsburg State won the 2005 MIAA championship and finished among the top 20 six times at the NCAA Outdoor Track and Field National Championships.
Prior to Pittsburg, Spies was the horizontal jumps coach at Virginia Military Institute for three seasons. During her tenure, she coached three triple jump conference champions, five sprint champions and 10 All-Big South performers.
Spies earned a Bachelor’s degree in history from Western State Colorado in 1999.
Spies earned a Master's degree in exercise physiology from Fort Hays State (Kan.). As a graduate assistant, she assisted with jumps, sprints and hurdles and coached numerous NCAA All-Americans and Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference (RMAC) champions.
In 2002, Spies received her Level I Track and Field Coaching Certification from USA Track and Field before adding a Level II Jumps certification a year later.
As an athlete, Spies represented her native country of Albania for five years in the European and world track and field arena, including representing the nation in the 1994 World Championships and the 1994 European Junior Championships. She was a four-time NCAA Champion in the triple jump and nine-time NCAA Division II All-American in the long jump and triple jump at Western State College (Colo.). Additionally, she was named the 1999 NCAA Division II Athlete of the Year and Western State inducted her into its Athletics Hall of Fame in 2008. In 2015, Spies was inducted into the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference Hall of Fame for her acomplishments as an athlete.
Ermelinda and her husband Robert, the McPherson head men's and women's track and field coach, have two children, Davian and Sofia.
