USU Eastern Press Release
Associate Vice President Greg Dart announced Jess Brinkerhoff as the new director of athletics at Utah State University Eastern following the departure of longtime coach and director Scott Madsen this past fall. Brinkerhoff will begin leading the Eagle’s athletic department beginning Wednesday, Feb. 2.
“We conducted an exhaustive search with more than 50 applicants from across the country. Jess exhibits the work ethic, demeanor and attitude to be a tremendous athletic director. The community, the campus and all of our student athletes will benefit from Jess’ leadership,” stated Dart.
Brinkerhoff is no stranger to Utah State Eastern athletics as he has been a part of the Eagle family for the past five years.
He obtained his bachelor’s degree in athletic training from Southern Utah University in 2014. After that, he stayed and worked for one year at the university while finishing his master’s degree in Sports Conditioning and Performance. At his time at SUU, he worked exclusively with softball and assisted heavily with men’s basketball and football. He was able to teach sports medicine and anatomy through Southwest Applied Technology College in Cedar City to local high school students.
After finishing his master’s degree at SUU, he spent two years at Lee Williams High School (LWHS) in Kingman, Arizona. There, he continued advancing his skills in sports medicine and sports performance as the athletic trainer and sports and conditioning coach. He was also able to be a winning head softball coach for one season (15-8) as well as an influential teacher for LWHS. There, he taught sports medicine classes and a medical occupations class for the high school.
In 2017, Brinkerhoff was hired as USU Eastern’s first full-time athletic trainer. In 2019, he was able to take on additional roles while transitioning his job title. Brinkerhoff filled in as the human anatomy professor for Utah State University, teaching the lecture and labs for a year. He also added strength and conditioning coach to his title where he coached specific teams. At this time, he helped coordinate the addition of the athlete gym, which gave a specific place for teams to strength train in a team environment.
These transitions helped Brinkerhoff obtain his most recent job title in 2020 as Director of Sports Medicine and Athletic Performance. He has overseen the sports medicine as well as strength and conditioning for all athletic teams, making sure they are healthy as well as optimally conditioned for their sport season. Adding professor to his title, he has also gained and created an Introduction to Athletic Training course at Utah State University.
Brinkerhoff comes from the small town of Bicknell in Wayne County, Utah and currently lives in Price with his wife Jessica, and their four children Jocelyn, Juliet, James and June.