WINDSOR, Ont. - St. Clair College Varsity Cross Country Head Coach Mark Beens has tendered his resignation for personal reasons and this will take effect immediately.

Beens has been coaching at St. Clair for 20 seasons dating back to 1991. He won the Coach of the year Award at St. Clair College 1995-96 and 2006-07 and has served as OCAA Cross Country Senior Convenor. Beens guided the Women’s Gold Medal team in 1994-95 and 1998-99 along with the OCAA Individual Men’s Champion in 2006-07 and the 2007-08 CCAA National Men’s Bronze Medalist. This is in addition to the numerous OCAA Silver and Bronze medal teams for both men’s and women’s programs that are listed below.

1991-92 (W) Team Silver Medal
1992-93 (W) Individual Silver Medal, (W) Team Bronze Medal
1994-95 (W) Team Gold Medal
1995-96 (W) Team Silver Medal
1996-97 (W) Team Silver Medal
1997-98 (W) Team Bronze Medal
1998-99 (W) Individual Silver Medal, (W) Team Gold Medal, (M) Team Silver Medal
1999-00 (M) Individual Silver Medal, (M) Team Silver Medal
2004-05 (M) Team Bronze Medal
2005-06 (M) Team Bronze Medal
2006-07 (M) Individual Gold Medal
2007-08 (M) Individual Bronze Medal, CCAA Individual Bronze Medal

St. Clair has played host to the OCAA Provincial Championships and the CCAA National Championships under Beens’ expert guidance. In addition, St. Clair College’s Annual Invitational Meet has been running since 1996 and is a fixture on the OCAA meet schedule. Most recently Beens was the architect behind St. Clair’s hosting of the OCAA Championships in 2009 at Malden Park. He was also instrumental in organizing the St. Clair College High School Invitational Meet and at its peak it became the second largest High School Invitational Meet in Ontario trailing only OFSAA with well over a thousand student participants.

Beens is a St. Clair College graduate from the Architectural Technology program and participated in three varsity sports during his years (Cross Country, Badminton and Curling) winning the Gold Medal as a member of the Cross Country Men's Team in 1989-90. He also won the Mason MacDonald Student Athlete of the Year Award in 1990 and was inducted as a member of the St. Clair College Sports Hall of Fame shortly after graduation.

St. Clair College and the Athletic Department are very sad to see its longest serving coach move on. Athletic Coordinator Ted Beale commented, “Mark has been a tremendous advocate for cross country running and delivered this program to the students at St. Clair in a first class manner for 20 seasons. He is the longest serving coach in St. Clair’s history and the unbelievable hours he logged during that span will never be forgotten. Not many of our coaches had to set their playing field before an event. He did that with great pride several times a year recruiting volunteers along the way to make our events some of the finest courses the athletes ran all season”.

The Athletic Department begins its search right away to fill the post and interested applicants can contact Ted Beale by phone at (519) 972-2727 Ext. 4214 for information. Resumes can be emailed to tbeale@stclaircollege.ca and a posting will be run on the St. Clair Athletics Web site at www.saintsathletics.ca.

Go to www.saintsathletics.ca for up to date information and results.

Source: St. Clair College