2025-26 is Ray Rudder's eighth as head coach of the Lions track & field and cross country teams.
He guided the men’s track & field team to fifth-place finish at the OUA championships for a second consecutive year in 2024-25, while leading them to a seventh-place finish at the U SPORTS championships. The women’s team finished eighth at the OUA championships and 19th at the national event.
He was named to the full-time head coach in May 2018. In 2023-24, Rudder helped bring the Lions track teams back to conference and national relevance. The women's team finished fifth at the OUA championship – matching its best finish since the pandemic – and 10th at the U SPORTS championships, the best finish since an eighth place finish in 2019. Meanwhile, the men's team placed fifth at the OUA championship, their best output since a bronze in 2020.
In 2023, Rudder led York’s cross-country teams to a pair of top 10 finishes at the OUA championships for the first time in his tenure, with the men finishing ninth and the women placing 10th.
Prior to being named head coach, Rudder was the full-time assistant for two years and spent one year as the multi-events coach. He has been with the Lions since 2015. He came to York with a wealth of experience working with professional sports teams and Olympic, world and collegiate athletes, as well as implementing youth development programs to successful elite junior athletes.
As the chief coach and manager of Athletics Barbados, he oversaw a number of tremendous performances by the country's track and field athletes, including Shakera Reece winning bronze in the women’s 100m at the 2011 Pan Am Games, Akeila Jones claiming gold in the women’s long jump at the 2014 world junior championships and Kion Joseph capturing bronze in the men's 400m hurdles at the 2011 Pan Am junior championships.
Rudder has a bachelor’s degree in physical education and sport from the International School of Physical Education and Sport in Cuba that he earned in 2006, and a master’s degree in management science from the Indiana Institute of Technology earned in 2014. He is also an IAAF Academy Level 5-certified chief coach and completed an internship at the IAAF High Performance Regional Development Center in Havana in the horizontal jumps.
He is an IAAF certified official and has diplomas in advanced sport management and sport administration from the International Olympic Committee and high performance track and field coaching from the Pan American Sport Organization. He is also a licensed teacher from the Ontario College of Teachers.
