July 7, 2009

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Illinois women's track and field head coach Tonja Buford-Bailey will serve as an assistant coach for Team USA at the 2009 IAAF World Outdoor Championships in Berlin, Germany, USA Track & Field announced Monday. Buford-Bailey will assist Team USA head coach Chandra Cheeseborough as the sprints/hurdles coach during the championships from August 15-23.

"It's a great honor to be chosen to work with the nation's elite," Buford-Bailey said. "We are taking a really good team to Germany and should have a lot of success. The team showed they are ready to compete at the USA championships and will want to bring back as many gold medals as possible."

Buford-Bailey was named head women's track and field coach at Illinois in 2008 after four seasons as an assistant coach and one year as associate head coach. In her first season as head coach, she was honored as the USTFCCCA Head Coach of the Year for the Midwest Region, after directing the Fighting Illini to a fourth-place finish at the NCAA Mideast Regional Championships, the best in school history. Under the guidance of Buford-Bailey in 2009, Illinois earned a 12th-place finish at the NCAA Outdoor Championships, had a national champion and three All-Americans, and had virtually ever sprinter and hurdler on the Illinois roster achieve a personal-best time.

The World Championships will mark the second international competition for Buford-Bailey as a coach. She also coached the female sprinters and hurdlers at the 2007 Pan American Junior meet, with her event-group athletes winning nine of Team USA's 23 total medals.

Cheeseborough, the head coach at Tennessee State University, will lead the women's staff assistant coaches, including Buford-Bailey (sprints/hurdles), Wake Forest's Annie Bennett (distance), Central Florida's Caryl Smith Gilbert (jumps) and Coastal Carolina's Carrie Lane (throws). Alabama's head coach Harvey Glance will direct the men's staff, consisting of Maryland's Andrew Valmon (sprints/hurdles), Kansas' Stanley Redwine (distance), Kansas State's Steve Fritz (jumps) and Oregon's Lance Deal (throws).

For more information on USA Track & Field, visit www.usatf.org.