Jeanne Rankin came to Coastal Carolina in July 2021 as the assistant director of speed, strength and conditioning. At Coastal, Rankin works with the women’s basketball, track & field, and women’s lacrosse programs.

Prior to joining the staff at Coastal, Rankin was the director of strength and conditioning at Eastern Connecticut State University from 2019-21. At ECSU, Rankin was the only paid strength and conditioning Coach, working with all 16 varsity sports. During the 2020 season, the ECSU softball team set a new school record for home runs, while both the softball and baseball teams were ranked top-15 in the country.

Before ECSU, Rankin was an assistant strength and conditioning coach at the University of Kentucky from 2013-19 where she worked primarily with men’s and women’s swimming and women’s soccer programs. Rankin also worked with the men’s and women’s track & tield team for two years from 2013-15. At Kentucky, she worked with UK swimming’s first individual national champion, three Olympic swimmers, and a women’s track & field program that finished second overall at the NCAA Championships. Rankin’s track & tield student-athletes included a 100-meter hurdle world record holder, 100-meter hurdle Olympic Gold medalist, both pole vault and decathlon NCAA champions, an NCAA runner-up in the javelin, and a handful of other Olympians throughout multiple events.

From 2009-13, Rankin was the assistant director of strength and conditioning at the University of Missouri — Kansas City. With the Roos, Rankin primarily worked with the softball, women’s soccer, track & field, women’s tennis, and women’s golf teams. From June 2011 to October 2011, Rankin served as the interim director of strength and conditioning and took over programming for all the teams in the department, in addition to taking care of the day-to-day operations of the weight room.

Rankin’s first paid job in the field was at the University of Arkansas from 2008-09. While at Arkansas, Rankin worked primarily with the women’s tennis, women’s golf, and women’s cross country teams, which all were top-20 nationally ranked programs nationally, while also assisting with all other Olympic sports. In addition, she worked with Christin Wurth-Thomas, a 2008 Olympian in the 1500-meters.

Before taking a full-time job at Arkansas, Rankin interned in the weight room at Oklahoma State University for one year from 2007-08 while she completed her M.S. in Health & Human Performance.

As a student-athlete, Rankin started in the inaugural Women’s Soccer McDonald’s/POWERade All-American game in 2002. She played her first two years of college soccer at the University of Colorado and was part of the team that won the Big XII Championship in 2003. Her 2006 team at Oklahoma State took the program to new heights after finishing that season ranked top-10 in the country and making it to the second round of the NCAA Championship Tournament for the first time in program history.

Rankin has certifications from the CSCCa (SCCC), NSCA (CSCS), and Totten Training Systems (Advanced Olympic Lifting Certification). She has spoken multiple times at both local and national conferences. She is very passionate about speaking on diversifying the field of collegiate strength and conditioning, as well as offering better and more equitable opportunities and support for women athletes.

She resides in Conway with her wife, Vanessa, who is a well-accomplished goalkeeper coach. They have two dogs (John and Toby) and a cat (Kitty Cat).