Nic Jacobsen was hired as the Associate Head Coach of New York University's men's and women's cross country and track & field teams in August 2025.
Jacobsen played an integral role in guiding both programs to historic finishes in 2025. The women’s cross country team won the Division III National Championship for the first time, while the men’s team placed fourth—the program’s best finish since 2009. The women’s top five finishers all earned All-America honors, and three members of the men’s team achieved the distinction as well.
Additionally, NYU was awarded University Athletic Association (UAA) Cross Country Coaching Staff of the Year honors for both the men’s and women’s programs, each of whom captured UAA Cross Country titles.
Team and individual success continued into the 2025-26 track & field seasons, with the women finishing 23rd at the NCAA Outdoor Championships and the men taking 34th, their best performance since 2005. The teams combined for 13 All-America honors between the two seasons.
Under Jacobsen’s guidance, freshman standout Theo Udelson-Nee earned two First-Team All-America honors, placing third in the 5000m at the NCAA Championships both indoors and outdoors in addition to setting a program and NCAA DIII freshman record of 13:56.49 at the Wake Forest Invitational.
The campaigns also included a wealth of academic accolades. The cross country teams combined for 15 USTFCCCA (U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association) All-Academic honors while a total of 61 All-UAA Academic accolades were compiled by the cross country and track & field teams.
Jacobsen graduated from NYU in 2020 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Individualized Study, with concentrations in Psychology, Social Politics and Leadership in Sport. A two-year member of the Violets' cross country team, Jacobsen went into coaching immediately after graduation, returning to his high school alma mater as the Cross Country and Track & Field Coach at Saint Andrew's School in Boca Raton, FL. After one season there, he moved to the University of Notre Dame as an assistant coach. One year later, he went to the University of Tennessee for a two-year stint as an assistant before serving one year at Southern Methodist University.
Along the way, Jacobsen helped lead the Notre Dame women to a fifth-place finish and the men to a ninth-place finish at the 2021 NCAA Division I Cross Country Championships, as well as the Tennessee women to a sixth-place finish in 2023. His coaching helped produce NCAA Division I individual championships for Dylan Jacobs in the 10,000m outdoors (2022) and the 5,000m indoors (2023), in addition to Yared Nuguse’s NCAA Indoor 3000m record of 7:38.13 (2022).
During Jacobsen's tenures, Notre Dame won the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) Men's Cross Country Championship in 2021 and Tennessee claimed the runner-up spot in 2022, its highest finish since 1999.
A native of Delray Beach, FL, Jacobsen resides in Manhattan.
