DENVER - Metro State Director of Athletics Joan McDermott announced on Friday that John Supsic has resigned from his position as head coach of cross country and track and assistant coach Nick Maas has been promoted as Supsic's replacement. Supsic resigned to accept a position outside of coaching.

“We want to thank John for his time here. He did an excellent job at sustaining our track and cross country programs at a highly competitive level and is leaving them in excellent shape for Nick.”

In four years as the track coach and three at the helm of the cross country program, Supsic coached 16 All-Americans and 15 Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference champions. In track, he coached 24 national qualifiers. In cross country, he led the men's team to two NCAA championships appearances, including a ninth-place finish in 2011, best in school history. He also guided senior-to-be Kirk Harvey (Lafayette, Colo./Centaurus H.S.), who has already been named Capital One Academic All-America twice and is the only Academic All-America in school history for track and cross country.

Maas has spent the past two seasons as an assistant coach, mainly overseeing the sprinters and jumpers in the track program and also assisting with the cross country team. He has helped guide Darius Reed (Denver/George Washington H.S.) to three All-America finishes on the track in the hurdles. In 2012, Reed became the first non-distance runner in school history to qualify for the NCAA championships.

Before joining the Roadrunners, Maas served as the head cross country and assistant track coach at Buena Vista University in Storm Lake, Iowa. In his four years, he coached 28 all-conference athletes, 14 national qualifiers and eight All-Americans at the Division III school. He also led both his indoor and outdoor teams to top-10 finishes at nationals in 2009.

Prior to his time at BV, Maas was the head cross country and track coach at Mount Marty College in Yankton, S.D., in 2006-07, coaching four national qualifiers. He also served as a graduate assistant at Northern Iowa University for two years prior to his year at Mount Marty.

Collegiately, he ran four years of cross country at Buena Vista and was a three-year team captain in track and two-year team captain in cross country. He was a three-time Iowa Conference place-winner in track. Maas spent one year competing at Division I Northern Iowa while working on his master's degree. In 2005, he earned all-Missouri Valley Conference and helped UNI to conference championships in indoor and outdoor track. Maas was a member of the third-fastest 4x800 relay team in school history.

He earned his bachelor's degree from BV in 2004 in education and his master's degree from UNI in 2006 in exercise physiology. Maas, a native of Tama, Iowa, resides in Littleton with his wife, Mandi.

“We were fortunate to already have a very experienced coach on staff in Nick,” McDermott said. “He has proven to be successful at coaching both distance runners and sprinters during his time as a head coach at Buena Vista and as an assistant here at Metro. He has a wealth of knowledge and will be a very good mentor for our student-athletes in the program.”

“I'm thrilled to be the next head coach at Metro State,” Maas stated. “We've got a great group of kids. John has done a wonderful job of starting up this program and I'm excited to pick up where he left off. I'd like to thank the administration, especially Joan and (associate athletic director) Scott (Groom), for giving me the opportunity to prove myself as a head coach here. We've got a great thing going at Metro State and things continue to improve every day as far as facilities and it's great to be a part of this growing university.”

MSU Denver's cross country team opens the season on Sept. 6 at the CSU Invitational in Fort Collins, Colo.