Shaun Meinecke enters his eighth season as head coach of the Missouri S&T track & field and cross country programs looking to keep the Miner program at the top end of the Great Lakes Valley Conference.
In his seven seasons as head coach, the Miners have captured seven Great Lakes Valley Conference championships in men's track & field, doing so in the 2018, 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024 outdoor seasons and 2020 and 2023 indoor campaigns, while also recording five top-four finishes in cross country. During his tenure as head coach, S&T has had five all-conference performers in cross country and has won 133 All-GLVC honors and 46 conference titles in track & field.
Meinecke came to S&T after serving as an assistant coach at the University of Wyoming for five seasons.  During his tenure at Wyoming, he handled the primary coaching responsibilities for the Cowboys' sprinters and hurdlers and well as the multi-events during the track season. In the first four years, a total of 37 members of the team earned All-Mountain West Conference honors, including seven MWC champions and 18 that were NCAA West Preliminary qualifiers.
Meinecke's first head coaching job came in 2003, when he took that role for the women's cross country and track programs at Georgia Southern University and was twice named as the Southern Conference's coach of the year in outdoor track & field. As head coach, he led the Eagles to back-to-back second place finishes in the Southern Conference in 2005 and 2006 and a total of 15 student-athletes won conference championships and 13 earned regional qualifying marks.
Two student-athletes set conference records along the way and one made an NCAA Division I qualifying mark as well. Meinecke was also an assistant in the GSU program from 2001-03 before becoming head coach for the women's program.
From there, Meinecke went on to spend three seasons as an assistant at Miami University in Ohio, where he coached Kristina Bolterstein to back-to-back All-America honors during that span as well as two Mid-American Conference champions and three years as an assistant coach at Long Beach State University, where he coached 16 individuals to all-conference honors and four Big West champions before moving on to Wyoming.
A total of eight school and one conference record was established while Meinecke was at Miami and five more school marks were set at Long Beach State, while six program records were set by Wyoming student-athletes during the last five seasons.
Meinecke was an All-America decathlete at the NCAA Division III level at Luther College in Iowa, where he was a three-time national qualifier and a member of a national championship team in the distance medley relay in 2001. In addition, Meinecke excelled post-collegiately, finishing as the 2003 USA Double Decathlon Champion and 2004 World Double Decathlon Champion.
He earned his bachelor's degree from Luther in business management in 2001 and his master's in sport management two years later from Georgia Southern.
Meinecke and his wife, Jacqueline, have one son, James and a daughter, Audrey.
