After 11 years, track and cross-country head coach Scott Trimble gives credit to those around him.

Trimble has been the head coach at UNA since 2003.

“I’ve got great kids around me,” Trimble said. “I’ve also got great assistants and all of them together are the biggest part of what I do, and they’re the ones who make it fun.”

Over the last few years, Trimble has added two assistants to his coaching staff, Hannah Simmons and Heath White.

Simmons also ran cross-country for the Lions during her undergraduate career, though she was Hannah Moot at the time.

“Hannah gives the girls somebody to relate to,” Trimble said. “Sometimes they just need a female voice, and Hannah really inspires them.”

White, who was hired in December 2013, also ran cross-country for UNA.

“Heath and Hannah were two of the best runners I’ve ever coached,” Trimble said.

Trimble relies heavily on his players to work through things themselves, he said.

“Sometimes I feel like I’m just their cheerleader, manger and the bus driver,” Trimble said. “I love seeing them persevere and that makes me love my job.”

Before coaching, Trimble was an athlete himself.

Trimble was a cross-country runner while attending UNA from 1996 to 2000.

“I didn’t graduate then,” Trimble said. “But I was finished running.”

Trimble did end up finishing his degree later at UNA and settled into a teaching role at Muscle Shoals High School.

“I’ve been fortunate enough to coach many different young men and women,” Trimble said. “They make it worthwhile.”

Along with his duties as the track and cross-country coach at UNA, Trimble is also a driver’s education instructor at Muscle Shoals High School.

Trimble is a native of the Shoals area, and he was born in Muscle Shoals and has lived here his entire life.

“I was born and raised here in the Shoals area,” Trimble said. “I was fortunate enough to run here and have met a lot of good people in this athletic department.”

Trimble defers his success to other people who have played various roles in his life.

“Bill Jones was the AD (athletic director) when I was here,” Trimble said. “He was so influential in getting me on the right track (and) doing the right things.”

As much as Trimble loves cross-country and track, he instills in his players that they are not here just to be athletes, he said.

“He told me when I first got here that you don’t miss class,” said junior cross-country runner Katherine Steinman. “’You are here to be a student first and an athlete second.’”

The cross-country team has a cumulative 3.4 grade point average and is on the all-academic conference team.

Trimble has the plaque hanging on his wall, he said.

“I’m more proud of them being all-academic than I would be if we won every national championship,” Trimble said.

Recruiting athletes is highly competitive and making an athlete feel comfortable is part of that process, he said.

“While being recruited by Coach Trimble I liked him a lot,” said sophomore Clay Oden. “Also, my dad really liked him and that has only grown since I’ve been here.”

Trimble’s proudest moment as a head coach had nothing to do with on-field performance, he said.

“We were getting off a plane at one of our meets,” Trimble said. “People came up to me and said that they were around some of the kindest, most well-mannered kids they have seen in a long time.

“I was so proud of these kids, because I knew that they we’re going to be successful in life. As a coach that is what I want the most.”