The track and field trend continues at Seattle Pacific – and it’s one heck of a successful trend, not only for the Falcons, but also for head coach Karl Lerum.
Lerum is starting his ninth year at the SPU helm. In 2012, for the third straight time, his Falcon women pulled an indoor-outdoor GNAC team title sweep. He has been named the West Region women’s indoor Coach of the Year and the GNAC indoor Coach of the Year for six straight years. And, of Seattle Pacific’s nine consecutive conference indoor team championships, Lerum has been the man in charge for the last seven of those.
Prior to the start of the 2013-14 school year, Lerum was named the director of SPU's entire running program, including the role of head cross country coach.
Lerum stepped up to the Falcons’ coaching helm in October 2005, taking over from Jack Hoyt. He worked as an assistant to Hoyt in 2000, and again in 2003. In between, he spent two years as an assistant coach at Trinity College, an NCAA Division III school in Hartford, Conn.
While Lerum has coached numerous athletes with impressive accomplishments at SPU, he has quite an impressive athletic background of his own.
As an athlete at Pacific Lutheran University in nearby Tacoma, Lerum made his mark in two sports. On the football field, he set – and still owns – the school career records for receptions and receiving yards. On the track, Lerum has the Lutes record in the 400 meters and is among the school's top 10 in the decathlon, 110 hurdles, long jump, 100 meters, and javelin. He was an All-American in the decathlon, finishing third at the NAIA nationals in 1996 and second in '97 and '98.
He didn’t stop there. After college, Lerum was on the San Francisco 49ers’ roster for the 1998 and 1999 preseason, and played with the Amsterdam Admirals in NFL Europe. In 2003 and again in 2004, he served as the head coach of the Oslo Vikings football program in Norway.
Lerum is a graduate of Franklin Pierce High School in Parkland, south of Tacoma. He has a bachelor’s degree in history from PLU and a master’s in history from Trinity.
He and wife Yvonne and son Lucas live in Seattle.