Bolivar, Mo. - Sterlen Paul is entering his third season as the assistant coach for the cross country and track and field programs at SBU. He primarily works with the athletes on hurdles, sprints, and jumps. He has an abundance of interest in both sports as both a runner and a coach.
 
"I did cross country and track when I was in college, so I've kind of built that foundation since I attended Abilene Christian." Paul said, "the overlap was there, so that interest continued to spark as I got into coaching, and then just being up and out of programs where it is beneficial to do both cross country and track. The big thing is that you've just got to see that transition from it, so there's the building up the base for cross country and then seeing how that base transitions to track. So, for me, being involved in both aspects is kind of just getting to see the best of both worlds and it's kind of interacting with both communities, and then seeing how that transitions. As I said, I did it myself, and it was something that was amazing, so just two different groups would get together and then transition into the next phase - it was just meaningful."
 
At Wiley College, Coach Paul garnered all-conference and academic all-conference honors in the men's 800-meter run, and he had quite a bit to say about the factors that helped get to that point. "Like everybody else, the hard work is nothing that was much different. I was very competitive - I am very competitive, and in that, I want to be successful both in my athletics and my academics, so I just try to put my best foot forward and try to make sure I am doing everything my coach wanted me to."
 
Sterlen Paul coached at two schools prior to joining SBU as a graduate assistant, and later, becoming an assistant coach. "It was right between COVID season, so there were a lot of decisions that needed to be made for me and my family and what we're going to be our next steps. Upon deciding to come to SBU, there was a lot of prayer, a lot of communication between me and my wife, and just trying to figure out what this next step is going to look like. There were some other lessons for me to learn still as a young coach, how it is to serve, how it is to be mentored, things like that. Functioning on the head coach who has done it for a long time was something that was going to be essential for me. So just looking at Coach McElhaney's accolades, what he has done with the program over the years, looking at all of those things were big factors for me."
 
In terms of the positive first impressions, he was given upon his arrival, he reflected on the presence that religion has on campus. "The big thing is the faith component. I've been coaching at a ton of places, but I've interacted with a lot of different people from different communities. A lot of times, I have had someone say, 'I'm a Christian,' or 'I have faith,' but there is a big difference between what is said and what it looks like, so actually seeing it being applied in our work was a big first impression. That was a big first impression for me because it wasn't just something where it's, 'Oh, we're a Christian school, but we just want to do things how it is.' It was more so like, 'Hey, we're a Christian school and this is how we're going to do things, and we're going to look that way un-apologetically,' so that was something that impacted me the most."