Nebraska Wesleyan University Athletics

Dr. Ted Bulling is in his 41st year as a coach with the Nebraska Wesleyan track and field/cross country program. During his tenure, NWU has been one of the elite programs at any level, both athletically and academically. Bulling’s teams have finished in the top 10 at NCAA Championships over 60 times and his athletes have been named Academic All-Americans over 50 times.
 
Bulling, a 1980 NWU alum, begun his career in 1981 as an assistant track coach. In 1985, he was elevated to the men’s track and field head coach and took over as the women’s track and field head coach in 1987. Bulling has been at the helm of the men’s cross country program since 1989 and the women’s cross country program since 1994.
 
Under Bulling’s leadership, the Prairie Wolves men's track & field program is fourth in the nation, and the women's track & field program is ninth for CoSIDA Academic All-Americans since 2000. NWU’s track and field/cross country has 56 Academic All-Americans in Bulling’s tenure. 
 
Additionally, Nebraska Wesleyan has 27 NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship recipients in track and field/cross country. Since 2000, the NWU track and field/cross country program has led the nation, regardless of division, with NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship winners.
 
Nebraska Wesleyan has won 41 track and field and 31 cross country conference championships with Bulling at the helm. The Prairie Wolves also have finished in the top 10, nationally, 52 times in track and field and 13 times in cross country under Bulling’s guidance.
 
Individuals have witnessed great success under Bulling’s tutelage. Bulling has coached 98 national champions at NWU. Nearly 700 Prairie Wolves have achieved All-American status in track and field and cross country with Bulling’s coaching. Bulling has been named National Coach of the Year six different times in his career, along numerous regional and conference coach of the year awards. 
 
As an NWU student-athlete, he held the program’s discus record for 10 years and was also a four-year letter winner and three-year starter on the defensive line in football. He was inducted into the NWU Athletic Hall of Fame in 1996.  In 2002, Bulling was honored with the Nebraska Wesleyan Roy G. Story Award – given to an individual who has significantly enhanced the national stature and reputation of Nebraska Wesleyan University.  Lincoln Northeast High School honored coach Bulling with its Distinguished Alumni Award in 2011.
 
Bulling graduated with a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Nebraska Wesleyan in 1980 then completed his Ph.D. in educational psychology at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 1992, Currently, Bulling also serves an assistant professor in Nebraska Wesleyan’s department of Health & Human Performance. 
 
Bulling and his wife, Denise (a 1982 NWU graduate), have two adult children, Emily and Elliott.  Emily, her husband Austen along with their children Addison and Jackson reside in San Antonio, Texas.  Elliott, a 2011 NWU alum and school record holder in the shot put, lives in Lincoln with his wife Kala (a 2014 NWU grad).  Both Elliott and Kala work at Hudl in Lincoln.