Mike Heimerman has continued Northwestern State’s track and field prominence of which he was a part under his predecessor Leon Johnson.
Heimerman enters his 13th season as NSU’s overall head coach after seven seasons as the women’s head coach and 27 total seasons on staff.
Under his guidance, the Northwestern State programs have soared to new heights.
He has led the Lady Demons to being on the verge of a dynasty, sweeping the indoor and outdoor titles in 2024 and 2025, as well as guiding the women to their first indoor title in 2023.
After needing a 4x400 relay to win their first outdoor title in 2024, Heimerman’s Lady Demons needed no such luck in 2025, cruising to a 63-point victory.
For his efforts, Heimerman was once again named SLC Women’s Coach of the Year and Co-Louisiana Coach of the Year, tying it with LSU's Dennis Shaver.
After not winning the indoor team title in their history until 2023, Heimerman guided the NSU women's team to its first two indoor team titles in program history in 2023 and 2024, the latter of which came in dominant fashion by 57 points over second place.
In June 2025, two NSU athletes earned All-American honors, as Roy Morris (long jump) and Maygan Shaw (400) each earned a spot on the second team.
Overall, he has coached two national champions and 37 All-Americans either as head coach or throws coach, a capacity in which he’s served in since 1997.
Jasmyn Steels won the NCAA Indoor National Champion in the long jump in 2019, following with a 2019 Outdoor silver and a 2021 Outdoor Championships appearance.
As a throws coach since 1997, Heimerman has supervised 13 All-American throwers, including discus national champion Trecey Rew.
Rew, also a shot put All-American, won NSU’s second-ever national title in an individual event in 2011.
Throwers have accounted for a total of 28 NCAA Championship entries, including two from Djimon Gumbs in 2022, the first male Demon to make two throws events in the same NCAA Championships.
The men and women have a combined 26 top-three finishes at the SLC Indoor and Outdoor Championships since 2013, including five women's titles the past two seasons.
Shaw has been a major part of the Lady Demons dominance, breaking multiple school records as a senior, including a 51.19 in the 400-meter dash, which not only broke the school record, but also the SLC mark.
She earned four gold medals in the outdoor conference meet, placing first in the 200, 400 and both relays, scoring 25 total points en route to an SLC Track Athlete of the Year award.
The Pineville native finished her career with 14 career SLC gold medals.
Sanaria Butler made a significant impact in her two seasons with NSU, earning a trip to the 2023 NCAA Outdoor Championships in the 400, and nearly made it again in 2024.
Heimerman was named the Louisiana Women's Coach of the Year following a pair of team titles in 2024.
As one of the most accomplished non-Power Five sprints programs in the nation, NSU has sent men’s relay teams to the NCAA Championships in 2016, 2018 and 2024 as well as the women's 4x400 team in 2024.
The 4x100 relay quartet of Micah Larkins, Amir James, Kie’Ave Harry and Tre’Darius Carr reached the NCAA finals, finishing seventh in 2018.
James and Larkins were part of a 15th-place 4x100 crew in 2016 that also included Ty Shilling and George Flaviano.
The women's 4x400 team of Shaw, Butler, Tranasia Jones and Vanessa Balde raced to a 16th place finish to garner second team honors in 2024.
Emmanuel Williams joined the 2016 All-Americans with a seventh-place standing in the long jump as NSU’s five All-Americans was its highest in any one season dating back to 1982.
Heimerman has personally coached 14 of NSU’s last 32 All-American athletes in the throws programs.
Some of the other highly-accomplished competitors Heimerman has helped develop at NSU include four-time All-American javelin thrower Cody Fillinich, 1999 USA Juniors javelin champion Latrell Frederick, a three-time All-American, and two other USA Juniors javelin champs, Dawn Comeaux and Randy Fauntleroy.
Under his leadership, the Lady Demon program set new highs for academic achievement, highlighted by Rew, an Academic All-American and the USA Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association 2011 Field Events Women’s Scholar-Athlete of the Year.
Outstanding success in recruiting, steeped in relentless effort and a powerful product to pitch, has brought in a bumper crop of talented young competitors to the NSU program.
More recently, NSU put a whopping 10 on the academic teams in 2025, led by pole vaulter Madison Brown, who took home the SLC Indoor Female Student-Athlete of the Year.
It helps that Heimerman has been in their shoes and had great success as a student-athlete at NSU.
Heimerman capped his competitive career with an eighth-place finish at the 1998 USA Championships in the shot put. He won the shot at the 1996 Southland Conference Outdoors and owns the program’s third-best mark with a 62-4.5.
Seeing his athletes rise to the occasion in conference, regional and national meets has been a hallmark of his coaching career.
It happened again in 2013 when senior Janae Allen finished 10th in the discus at the NCAA Outdoors to earn All-America accolades.
The 2012 season saw yet another Heimerman-coached thrower rise near the top of the collegiate ranks as Ashley Aldredge lofted an NCAA 14th-best, and NSU second-best, mark of 166-0 and captured the Southland Conference Championship. Aldredge recovered from a serious injury to return to the NCAA Championships in 2015.
The 2011 season was spectacular for the Lady Demon track and field program, with Trecey Rew’s NCAA discus championship and the team’s best-ever finish, a runner-up showing, at the Southland Conference Outdoor Championships.
It was no surprise that Heimerman was voted women’s Coach of the Year on the All-Louisiana Team in 2011, sharing the honor with LSU’s Dennis Shaver.
Even before taking the helm of the program, he was a key factor in helping the Demons and Lady Demons make the most consistently high finishes at Southland Conference championships of any Louisiana team.
Since Heimerman wrapped up his own outstanding competitive career and joined the coaching staff, NSU has consistently produced nationally competitive throwers.
When Fillinich won his fourth All-America award at the 2009 NCAA meet, it was also the ninth time in 11 years that Northwestern had either a male or a female javelin thrower reach the NCAA Outdoors.
All of the athletes have been Louisiana prep products and four previously — Regina Roe, Latrell Frederick, Samantha Ford and Fillinich— won All-America honors by virtue of their performances at the national meet. Ford reached the 12-woman USA Olympic Trials Finals in 2008 and 2012.
The 2011 season provided the most unlikely member of the NSU javelin All-America contingent. Jessica Talley walked on in November, having never thrown farther than 130 feet in high school. She added almost 30 feet to her throw under Heimerman’s guidance, recording a mark of 158-6, and finishing 11th at the NCAA Championships to earn All-America honors.
Aldredge’s 2015 and 2016 NCAA Outdoors appearances and honorable mention All-America honors were a testament to her grit, talent and persistence and Heimerman’s faith in her and his guidance. Her comeback from surgery, along with marriage and becoming a mother, required a special level of commitment from athlete and coach, whose partnership was rewarded with a pair of Southland crowns and the NCAA appearance.
Heimerman helped Rew develop into a legendary competitor in school and Southland Conference history. She first achieved national prominence in 2007 as a freshman when she qualified for the USA Junior Nationals in two events and made the USATFCCA (coaches’ association) All-Academic Team. She capped her career in 2011 with All-America honors in the shot and discus, eight Southland titles, being named Academic All-America, USATFCCA National Field Events Scholar-Athlete of the Year and claiming the NCAA discus crown.
