OBU track and field coach Ford Mastin is an 11-time NAIA National Coach of the Year with 10 NAIA national championships, and eight NCCAA National Championships, since starting with the Bison in the 1996-97 seasons.
Highlight years have include 2007 when the women won the Indoor National Championship and the men won the Outdoor National Championship, and 2013 when both men and women's teams captured Indoor National Championships. Along with the Team Championships came National Coach of the Year awards to bring Mastin's total to 11 - one each in 1998, 2005, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2014 and 2015, and two in 2007 & 2013.
On the national level, the Bison women have won seven NAIA team national championships and four NCCAA National Championships In the NAIA, the women have finished as runners-up five times and have two third-place finishes. Since the 2005 indoor season, Mastin’s women's 4x400 meter relay teams have won 16 of a possible 19 relay national championships, including an incredible 11 titles in a row (outdoor 2007-outdoor 2012). The relay teams’ first miss since 2007 was a runner-up finish indoors as the Bison captured the team national championship.
The Bison men have captured two NAIA national championships, four NCCAA National Championships, and have finished as runners-up four times. They also have 13 third-place finishes and have nine national fourth-place finishes.
In the Sooner Athletic Conference, the Bison women dominated, winning 16 consecutive conference championships. The women's cross country team won 13 out of the last 18 SAC titles. The men's track team won 14 out of 16 conference championships, including eight in a row, while the men's cross country teams have won 10 out of the last 18.
Since arriving in 1996-1997, the OBU cross country and track programs have produced more than 1,100 All-American awards, 106 National Champion relay or individual winners and six National Records under Mastin. He was named OBU's Most Promising Teacher in 2001, and received the OBU Meritorious Award in 2017. He has garnered countless conference and regional Coach of the Year honors and was inducted in to the Oklahoma Track Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 2008, the Oklahoma Baptist University’s Athletic Hall of Fame in 2009 and the NAIA Hall of Fame in 2014. He won the SAC Coach of Character Award in 2012-13 and the NAIA Coach of Character Award in 2014.
He has garnered countless conference and regional Coach of the Year honors and was inducted into the Oklahoma Track Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 2008, the Oklahoma Baptist University’s Athletic Hall of Fame in 2009 and the NAIA Hall of Fame in 2014, and the Drake Relays Hall of Fame in 2019. He won the SAC Coach of Character Award in 2012-13 and the NAIA Coach of Character Award in 2014.
Mastin, who has a master of divinity degree from Southwestern Theological seminary and a master of education degree from East Central University, is a third generation Bison – a 1977 graduate of OBU. He lettered in track from 1973-1977 and was Team Captain and Most Valuable Athlete in his senior season.
His coaching career began at Texas Christian University as assistant track and head cross country in 1979. He became teacher and coach at Happy Hill Academy in 1980-1981. From 1982-1996, Mastin served as track, cross country, and assistant football coach at Prague High School in Oklahoma. While there, he coached 13 All-State award winners. He was named Oklahoma Track Coach of the year and USA Track and Field representative of Olympic development in Oklahoma in 1994.
Ford and his wife, Terri, have three children, Linsey, Trevor, and Kaeley.
