Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Riley Macon enters his third season as the men's and women's cross country head coach and assistant track and field coach in 2024-25 after being named to the position on July 1, 2022. He previously served as the program's interim head coach during the 2020-21 academic year, while also working as an assistant coach for cross country and coached the distance runners on the track and field teams in 2021-22. In addition, Macon is an instructor within the MIT physical education and wellness program.

In 2024-25 Macon swept the East Region Men's and Women's Coach of the Year awards for the second straight season as led the Engineers to an eighth-place finish on the men's side at Nationals with Sam Acquaviva and Lowell Hensgen earning All-America honors while the women's. team took 11th at Nationals with Katherine Sanderson earning All-America laurels. 

During the 2022-23 season, Macon guided the men's cross country program for the first NCAA team national championship in any sport as his Engineers won the NCAA title with a convincing performance in Lansing, Mich. Five of his men's student-athletes earned USTFCCCA All-America honors, while Macon was named as the men's cross country National Coach of the Year. He also helped lead the women's cross country team to a seventh-place finish at the NCAA National Championship, with two student-athletes picking up All-America accolades. 

As an assistant coach with the track and field program, Macon earned USTFCCCA Indoor Men's National Assistant Coach of the Year as the men's team finished as the NCAA National Runner-Up. The women's indoor track and field team finished 16th at the national championship in Birmingham as the Engineers finished the two-day meet with eight All-America performers. At the outdoor NCAA Championship, the men's track and field team earned the NCAA title as they were led by a pair of NCAA individual crowns from Ryan Wilson in the 800 meters and 1,500 meters. They were joined on the podium by the women's track and field team, which powered to a fourth-place finish.

Macon previously served as a volunteer assistant at MIT for the 2018 cross country season and worked as an adjunct professor in the Department of Exercise Science at Middle Tennessee State University.

In addition, Macon has served as the deputy director of the Boulder Running Camps, where he planned and executed three camp sessions totaling approximately 350 campers each summer.

He is a 2016 graduate of the University of Minnesota, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in kinesiology. As a student-athlete at Minnesota, Macon was a two-time Academic All-Big Ten Cross Country Scholar-Athlete, a two-year varsity letter winner and earned his Master of Science degree in exercise science from Middle Tennessee State University in 2020.