Jebreh Harris comes to Illinois to serve as an assistant coach for track & field middle distances and long sprints after spending five seasons as the head cross country and assistant track & field coach at UNLV. He also served as the recruiting coordinator at UNLV for both the cross country and track & field programs. Harris will coach the 1500, 800, and 400, 200 event groups for the Fighting Illini.
In Harris’s first year he coached Felicia Phillips (400m) to help the women’s DMR to a 3rd place finish at the 2019 Big 10 Indoor Championships with the time of 11:21.85. Konrad Eiring placed first in 1000m at the Larry Wieczorek Invitational earning him a personal best time in the event.
Prior to Illinois, Harris coached Avi'Tal Wilson-Perteete to the second fastest time in the NCAA in the 800m, and she returns this season with the fastest time in the 800m at 2:01.14. Harris also coached Kaysee Pilgrim to a third-place finish in the high jump at NCAA Championships in 2017, where Pilgrim posted a 6'0.75" and with a PR of 6’2.75 that same season. Pilgrim earned NCAA First Team All-American honors in the high jump, and Wilson-Perteete earned Second Team All-American Honors in the 800m in both the indoor and outdoor seasons. Both Wilson-Perteete and Pilgrim broke Mountain West Conference Championship and all-time conference records in the 800m and high, jump respectively.
In total, Harris coached five individual and five relay MWC Conference Champions and 20 All-Conference track and field performances at UNLV. He assisted in leading the UNLV track & field program to the Mountain West Conference Indoor Championship title in 2018. Harris coached UNLV school records in six events: the indoor and outdoor Distance Medley Relay (DMR), indoor 800m, indoor 600m, indoor 5k and outdoor high jump. The 2018 indoor DMR team clocked a time of 11:31.59A, breaking a previous school record that had stood for 20 years.
Prior to UNLV, Harris spent two years at South Carolina State as assistant head coach of cross country and track & field. He coached Seymour Walter when Walter broke the U.S. Virgin Islands national record in the 800m, posting a time of 1:49.19. Walter’s went on to compete at NACAC U23, CAC, and World University Games for the USVI. Harris also coached the women's cross-country team to runner-up in the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference. He coached Brittany Stewart to an outdoor 5k conference title, and to a second-place finish at cross country conference championships. 23 school records were broken in his tenure at SCSU.
Harris began his coaching career as a volunteer assistant coach for five years at the University of Tennessee. In 2005, he was on a staff under cross country coach, George Watts where the cross-country team made its first NCAA Championships appearance in three seasons. As a volunteer coach he assisted Tennessee in achieving a team title at the 2003 SEC Indoor Track & Field Championship.
A native of Decatur, Georgia, Harris ran collegiately at the University of Tennessee, where he earned his undergraduate degree in graphic design in 2002. He was a two-time NCAA All-American in the distance medley and the 4x400m relay. He helped lead the team to both NCAA and SEC Outdoor Championships team titles in 2001. He was teammates at Tennessee with Illinois associate head coach Adrian Wheatley. Harris also competed at Alabama State prior to Tennessee where he earned all-conference awards in cross country and track & field.
Harris continued after Tennessee to have a strong professional career, which included being ranked No. 2 in the U.S. in the 800m in 2007. He competed in two Olympic Trials Finals (2004 & 2008) and seven total U.S. Outdoor Championships. Harris was a member of the American record-breaking 4x800m relay team, which finished with a time of 7:02.82 in Brussels, Belgium.
Outside of the NCAA, Harris has served on three USA National Track & Field teams. Most recently, in July Harris was the Women’s Distance coach for the U20 Pan Am Team in San Jose, Costa Rica. In 2018 Harris was the Men’s Distance coach for the IAAF World Jr Team in Tampere, Finland. 2016 Harris served as event manager for the NACAC U23 National Team in San Salvador, El Salvador.
