HEAD MEN’S/WOMEN’S CROSS-COUNTRY COACH
4th Season
ASSISTANT MEN’S/WOMEN’S INDOOR & OUTDOOR TRACK & FIELD COACH
4th Season
Last updated: October 7, 2006
CHARLES MAYS, JR., the son of the late 1968 Olympian Charlie Mays, enters his fourth season as head coach of the men’s and women’s cross-country programs at New Jersey City University in 2006, and third as an assistant coach for the men’s and women’s indoor and outdoor track and field teams.
Mays, Jr. is the first head coach of the men’s cross-country program since it was re-introduced at the University on June 02, 2003, after being discontinued following the 1981 season.
He has worked with head coach Steven Royster and assistant coach Donnie Bellamy, to create one of the strongest men’s and women’s track and field programs in Division III. Mays, Jr. has worked hard to recruit top-notch student-athletes on a regional and national level, which has contributed to this ascension to the ranks of a top-notch program.
That success can be seen with NJCU’s near sweep of the Eastern College Athletic Conference championships in May 2005: the men won the ECAC title and demolished the field, while the women were a mere five points shy of the crown. The men’s squad followed that title with the 2006 ECAC Indoor crown in March 2006.
Mays, Jr. has helped NJCU’s men’s track program become one of the fastest growing in Division III since being reinstated for the 2003 season. Among the most notable achievements he has helped cultivate came on April 29, 2006 when the men’s outdoor 4x100 relay team set an all-time Division III national record in the event in front of a crowd of 49,771 during the Penn Relays in Philadelphia. NJCU became the first team in Division III history to break 40 seconds in the 4x100. It is regarded as one of the most significant athletic accomplishments in NJCU sports history.
The men’s indoor track program has been featured on national television on CBS Sports twice in 2005 and 2006. In his time with the program, the men’s indoor program has amassed two individual national championships, with Anthony Miles winning the 55-meter dash in 2005 and 2006.
He has helped produce 10 All-America, 31 All-ECAC, 8 ECAC champion and seven All-NJAC performers in the last two seasons.
At the NCAA championships, the indoor team finished fifth in Division III in 2006, becoming one of six programs in school history to place among the top five at an NCAA event. The 2005 indoor program placed seventh nationally. The men also scored 21st and 23rd place outdoor finishes in 2005 and 2006, respectively.
While the men’s program has emerged recently as a force to be reckoned with, Mays, Jr. has continued to aid the progression of the women’s track program, which has been a constant power since 2000.
Most notably, Mays, Jr., a jump-events specialist, helped Andrea Herbert win the 2005 Division III national championship in the indoor triple jump. In his time as assistant coach, there have been four All-America, eight All-ECAC and 10 All-NJAC performers.
During the outdoor season, he helped five-time national champion Diana Lawson capture her final two championships in 2005. In all, NJCU has generated six All-America, 17 All-ECAC and 10 All-NJAC winners in the last two seasons.
Mays, Jr. came to NJCU after serving as an assistant at several local high schools, most recently at Lincoln (2002-2003) in Jersey City, where he was the boys and girls cross-country and track sprint coach.
Prior to Lincoln, he was the assistant indoor and outdoor track and field and cross-country coach at his alma mater, McNair Academic (2001-2002) in Jersey City. He began his high school coaching career at St. Peter’s Prep (1998-2001) in Jersey City as an assistant indoor and outdoor track and field and cross-country coach. At St. Peter’s Prep, he helped lead the Marauders to the 1999 and 2000 Hudson County Indoor Track Championships.
Since 2002, he has also been involved in youth track & field as the Assistant Meet Director of the DeKalb County Youth Games in Decatur, Georgia, and the Assistant Camp Coordinator at the Mel Pender Track & Field Summer Camp in Atlanta, Georgia.
He has been the head track coach for the Team Walker Summer Track Club since 1999. Mays, Jr. also helped out on the national level in 2000, when he was the assistant to the food service coordinator at the USA Track & Field Olympic Trials in Sacramento, CA.
The involvement in the sport of track comes naturally for the younger Mays, who has been exposed to it since he was born. His father, Charlie Mays, is a legendary name in New Jersey track history. A nine-time Amateur Athletic Union champion in the long jump and six-time champion in the 440-yard dash, Mays, Sr. was a member of the United States' 1968 Olympic Team in Mexico City, Mexico as a long jumper. The younger Mays was an infant when his family attended his father’s Olympic trials in Lake Tahoe in 1968.
His father was selected as an AAU All-American 11 times and was named the AAU Track and Field Athlete of the Year on three occasions. In college at Maryland State College (now Maryland Eastern Shore), he was ranked No. 1 in the world in the indoor 500-yard dash. He was a two-time NCAA champion in the long jump and the mile relay.
The elder Mays, a former member of the Jersey City council for six years and an inductee into the Hudson County Hall of Fame, coached for more than seven seasons as an assistant at Seton Hall University, before passing away in April 2005. He was an assistant coach for the Gothic Knights indoor and outdoor women’s programs at then-Jersey City State College during the 1996-97 season under former women’s coach Mark Griffin.
“He never forced me or pressured me to do anything in the sport,” the younger Mays said in describing his father’s influence. “He just let me be me as a kid. In fact, I originally played baseball when I was growing up. I’ve just grown to love the sport of track & field.”
A May 1990 graduate of the University of Maryland Eastern Shore with a bachelor of science in General Studies, and a concentration in Business Administration, Mays, Jr. attended the Princess Anne, MD school on a track & field athletic scholarship from 1986-90. During his career with the Hawks, he captured the indoor and outdoor Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) championships during the 1989-90 season as part of the men’s 4x400-meter and sprint medley relay teams. He has been a member of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc. since 1988.
A 1985 graduate of McNair Academic High School, he competed in basketball and outdoor track and field for the Cougars.
Mays, Jr. resides in Union, NJ with his wife, Anna, and newborn son, Charles Mays III, born in October 2006.
