UM track coach Schweyen steps down

Brian Schweyen, the long-time track coach at the University of Montana, has resigned his position after 11 seasons.

The news, first reported by Skylinesports.com, comes 4.5 months after his wife, Shannon, was dismissed as the Montana Lady Griz coach. She’d led the women’s basketball program for four seasons.

Skylinesports.com tweeted part of an email message the coach sent to UM’s track and field athletes:

“A lot has happened the past 5 months both in the world and with my family,” it read. “Due to current circumstances, I feel it’s best that I look at opportunities presented to me to leave this department and team.”

Schweyen came to UM in 1994 as a volunteer assistant and was elevated to full-time assistant in 1997. He briefly left the program after the 2006-07 school year – he opened an art studio in downtown Missoula – and then returned as head coach when Tom Raunig stepped down to take a position at University of Providence in Great Falls.

Schweyen was an All-America performer at Montana State in the high jump, and was a seven-time all-Big Sky Conference performer in that event and the pole vault from 1988-91.

His teams finished as high as second in the Big Sky championship for both women (2011, 2014 and 2017) and men (2016). His 2010 women’s team won the Big Sky cross country championship; eight of his athletes qualified for national championships in either cross country, indoor track or outdoor track.