Mircea Bogdan is in his sixth season as an assistant coach with the Loyola University Chicago cross country and track & field programs. Bogdan, who spent the 2015-16 season at Western Illinois, focuses his time with the team's men's middle distance and distance student-athletes.
Over the past five season seasons, Bogdan has played a major role in the development of 36 All-Missouri Valley Conference selections. At the forefront of that group has been Kevin White. Under Bogdan's tutelage, White has captured three Valley 800m run titles, highlighted by back-to-back victories in the event at the outdoor league meet in 2017 and 2018. White, who is a three-time regional qualifier, made his debut on the national stage in 2017-18, earning United States Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) Honorable Mention All-American honors after he posted the fourth fastest 1,500m run time in school history (3:43.26) to qualify for the NCAA Championships.
On the cross country course, Alex Baker developed into one of the conference's top male runners with Bogdan's assistance. A two-time All-Valley selection, Baker earned top-10 finishes in each of his last two appearances at the MVC Cross Country Championships, highlighted by an impressive runner-up showing (24:38) in the men's 8k race. He also excelled on the track, taking second overall (8:20.69) in the 3,000m run at the 2017 MVC Indoor Championships.
Bogdan's work was also evident with the pairing of Riley DeMeulenaere and Demetri Panici. DeMeulenaere captured the MVC title in the 3,000m steeplechase in 2019, and carried that success into the shortened 2019-20 season, taking home First Team All-MVC honors following a 10th-place finish at the MVC Cross Country Championship. DeMeulenaere went on to earn a runner-up finish in the 3,000m run at the MVC Indoor Championships, where he ran alongside Panici, an All-Valley selection in the 800m run as a senior, on Loyola's conference champion Distance Medley Relay.
Bogdan is far from a stranger to Rogers Park. Prior to his stint with the Leathernecks, the Romania native served as a volunteer assistant coach with the Maroon & Gold. Bogdan presided over the development of a trio of Missouri Valley Conference champions and assisted with the training of 1,500m All-American Sam Penzenstadler. He also helped lead the Ramblers to a program-best third-place finish at the 2015 Missouri Valley Conference Indoor Track & Field Championships.
"I'm very excited to be retuning to Loyola," Bogdan commented. "It is truly a privilege to work with the talented group of student-athletes that we have here. Loyola is used to excellence in both cross country and track & field and I'm here to continue that trend as we strive to be at the top of the Missouri Valley Conference. I look forward to working with Coach Thurnhoffer and the rest of our coaching staff as we seek to elevate this program to even greater heights."
Bogdan, who served as an assistant coach with the women's distance program for the Adidas Boulder-Wave Romanian team, cut his teeth in coaching as a graduate assistant coach at Saint Francis University. During his time in Loretto, Pa., the Red Flash captured the 2009 Northeast Conference (NEC) title, with a numerous athletes earning individual league titles as well.
Prior to joining the coaching ranks, Bogdan racked up honors as a student-athlete at the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP). In 2005, he became the first male Miner since 1999 to be crowned an NCAA champion when he took first in the 3,000m steeplechase at the 2005 NCAA Outdoor Track & Field Championships in Sacramento, Calif. Just a year later, he helped the school claim a seventh-place finish at the outdoor national meet. Perhaps his greatest honor came in 2008 when he qualified to represent Romania in the steeplechase at the Beijing Olympics.
