JJ Hunter recently completed his third season as an assistant coach for Miami track and field, where he leads the men’s sprint group. He enters the 2025–26 season following three years of record-setting progress, highlighted by six school records, 24 top-5 all-time marks, and NCAA 400m qualifiers in consecutive seasons.
In the 2025 outdoor season, George Franks ran 45.20 to take fourth in a highly competitive ACC 400m final. That mark placed him No. 2 all-time at Miami and ranked No. 14 in the NCAA for the season. The Hurricanes also broke the 4×100m school record with a time of 39.40, surpassing the previous mark of 39.57 that had stood for 15 years. The record-setting relay featured Carter Cukerstein, Ashton Torns, Lance Ward, and Caine Stanley. Hunter’s group added multiple new top-5 performances during the campaign, continuing the unit’s upward trajectory.
Earlier that year, Hunter led the men’s sprint squad to a historic 2025 indoor season. At the ACC Indoor Championships, his group captured the program’s first-ever ACC men’s 4×400m relay title with the team of Ward, Franks, Ace Malone, and Solomon Strader, while Strader and Franks claimed silver in the 400m and 200m, respectively. Strader went on to earn All-American honors in the 400m at the NCAA Indoor Championships, the program’s first in that event in almost three decades.
In his second season, Hunter guided Strader as he advanced from an ACC bronze medalist in 2023 (46.14) to one of the top quarter-milers in the country. In 2024, Strader ran a personal best of 45.52, which ranks No. 3 all-time at Miami, and qualified for the NCAA Championships in the 400m. He also qualified for the 2024 U.S. Olympic Trials, advancing to the semifinal round in one of the deepest events in American track and field. That same season, Malone was named the ACC Men’s Track Rookie of the Year after placing fifth in the ACC 400m with a personal best of 46.08, and contributing to the school-record-setting 4×400m relay alongside Strader, Jalen Gordon, and Robert Joseph. That group earned bronze at the 2024 ACC Outdoor Championships, breaking a 27-year-old school record with a time of 3:04.65.
Hunter served as the Director of Track and Field and Cross Country at MIT during the 2021–22 season. Under his leadership, MIT had one of the most successful years in the program’s history. The men’s team finished third at the NCAA Outdoor Championships and was named the USTFCCCA Division III Program of the Year, an award recognizing the best combined national finishes across cross country, indoor, and outdoor track and field. Hunter was named the 2022 USTFCCCA Outdoor Regional Coach of the Year for his work that season. MIT athletes won seven individual NCAA titles (including five outdoors), the most in school history. Kenneth Wei broke a 48-year-old NCAA Championship record in the long jump with a mark of 7.88m, the seventh-best performance across all NCAA divisions that year. Wei also became the first Division III athlete ever to win both the 110m hurdles and long jump at the same NCAA Championships.
Prior to his time at MIT, Hunter was the head track and field coach at Division III Kenyon College (OH) during the 2020–21 season.
From 2016 to 2020, he served as an assistant coach at the University of Pennsylvania, working with men’s sprints, hurdles, horizontal jumps, and multi-events. During his tenure, Hunter coached eight NCAA East Regional qualifiers, eight Academic All-American honorees, and 18 All-Ivy performers. He was named the 2019 USTFCCCA Indoor Regional Assistant Coach of the Year after leading athletes to nine Ivy League event titles and 23 top-10 program marks.
Hunter previously coached at Miami from 2004 to 2007 under former men’s head coach Mike Ward. During that period, he guided Lance Leggett to a 12th-place finish in the 60m hurdles at the 2007 NCAA Indoor Championships and to an ACC title in the 400m hurdles in 2006.
Before that, he spent the 2003–04 season at Florida International University, where he developed one NCAA Championship qualifier, four school-record holders, and 15 All-Sun Belt Conference performers.
Hunter began his coaching career at The College of New Jersey (2001–03), where his athletes earned 24 NCAA All-America honors, 23 NJAC Conference titles, seven conference records, and two USATF Junior National qualifications in the 200m and 400m.
He holds a Bachelor of Science from La Salle University (biology, minor in music history) and an MBA from the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley.
As a professional athlete, Hunter competed for Shore AC and Nike Atlantic Coast Club, qualified three times for the USATF Outdoor Championships, and posted personal bests of 10.10w and 10.25 in the 100m.
