University of North Dakota Athletics

Jim Vahrenkamp is entering his fourth year as the head track & field coach at the University of North Dakota in 2024-25.

In 2023-24, Kenna Curry (weight throw) and Luke Labatte (3,000-meter steeplechase) both earned Second Team All-America status at the NCAA Championships. Curry was just the third UND student-athlete to compete at the NCAA Indoor Championships in UND’s Division I history, while Labatte was the first student-athlete on the men’s side in UND’s Division I history to reach the NCAA Outdoor Championships.

UND recorded 18 All-Summit League Performances in the 2023-24 seasons, with seven all-conference performers during the indoor season and 11 during the outdoor season. Yonca Kutluk was a triple-crown winner at the indoor championships, claiming the individual titles in the mile, 3,000 meters and 5,000 meters. Curry (weight throw), Maurie Petersen (heptathlon), and Malene Kollberg (pentathlon) also claimed crowns at the indoor meet. During the outdoor season, Labatte (3,000-meter steeplechase), Justice Dick (800 meters), and Jadyn Keeler (3,000-meter steeplechase) each won titles at the Summit League Outdoor Championships. At the end of the outdoor season, Vahrenkamp’s coaching guided North Dakota to five bids to the NCAA West Preliminary Round and he has now helped UND accumulate 16 bids to the NCAA Regional in his time at UND.

With the help of his coaching in 2022-2023, Elise Ulseth became an honorable mention All-American in the heptathlon for the second straight year. By competing at the NCAA Outdoor Championships, Ulseth became the first Fighting Hawk since Molli Detloff (hammer throw, 2017 & 2019) to compete on the outdoor national stage in the same event.

The Fighting Hawks produced 18 All-Summit League performers in 2022-23, piling up 10 all-conference honorees during the indoor season and eight during the outdoor season. The All-Summit League performers were highlighted by Kollberg winning the pentathlon at the indoor conference championships, while three Hawks won Summit League titles during the outdoor season: Curry (shot put), Austin Wolf (high jump) and Luke Labatte (3,000-meter steeplechase).

In 2021-22, Vahrenkamp coached honorable mention All-American Ulseth. With his help, she became the first combined events athlete at UND to ever compete at a National Championship meet, taking 17th at the 2022 NCAA Outdoor Championships, Ulseth rewrote the record books at North Dakota in 2021-22, setting seven new school records (three indoor and four outdoor).

Vahrenkamp also produced 14 All-Summit League performers in his first year, with four all-conference honorees during the indoor season and 10 during the outdoor season. The list of All-Summit League performers included four Summit League individual champions: Ulseth (pentathlon and outdoor long jump), Brooklyn Gould (heptathlon) and Luke Labatte (3,000m steeplechase).

Coach Vahrenkamp arrived at UND as a 14-time NCAA Division II Southeast Region Head Coach of the Year and came to North Dakota from Queen’s University in North Carolina.

Before North Dakota, he spent nine years as the Director of Track & Field and Cross Country and produced 21 South Atlantic Conference (SAC) team championships, including two SAC triple crowns, 61 NCAA All-Americans to go along with an NCAA Champion in five different individual events.

In addition to Queens’ 21 conference championships, Vahrenkamp’s teams finished second as a team in conference championships on nine occasions.  Until 2018, the SAC didn’t sponsor indoor track and field at the conference level, meaning there wasn’t an indoor conference championship held.  The 30 top two team finishes at the conference level represent 93% of the total number of SAC championships held in Vahrenkamp’s nine years at helm of the program. 
  
Prior to his time at with the Royals, he was an assistant track and field and cross country coach at Augustana University in Sioux Falls, S.D from 2009-2012 where he was a part of two women’s Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference team championships as well as the 2012 women’s NCAA cross country championship team.
 
He spent the 2008-2009 season as an assistant coach at NCAA Division III Emory University where he was part of the University Athletic Association coaching staff of the year after winning the conference indoor championship.
 
Vahrenkamp spent two seasons as a volunteer assistant coach at his alma mater, the University of South Dakota from 2006-2008. 
 
Vahrenkamp was a multi-event student-athlete for the Coyotes and earned a bachelor’s degree in 2006 and a master’s degree in 2008 from USD.  He was the 2005 North Central Conference champion in the pentathlon.