Julie Carter was named the new head coach for the cycling program effective July 1, 2014, taking over from Chris Mileski who stepped back into a consulting role for the team. Â Since then, riders have won five additional individual titles for the program in the disciplines of road, track, and mountain bike, adding to the two individual championships earned previously.
Carter brings a wealth of riding and coaching experience to the position. She began racing at the age of eight after her brothers were introduced to cycling through the Boy Scouts. Her parents bought a bike shop a year later and it didn't take long for her to excel in the sport. In 1991, Carter won the Junior National Championship Time Trial, setting a national record at the time.
After the accomplishment, she came under the tutelage of several world-renowned coaches including Klement Capliar, who coached at the highest levels in Czechoslovakia, Canada, Mexico, and the United States. Carter finished in the top five at Junior Nationals in multiple road and track events every year she competed, and by the time she reached the racing age of 17, she achieved women's Category 2 status.
During her final year of serious racing in 1996, she was dating her eventual husband Josh Carter and introduced him to cycling. After the couple was married and started a family, she turned her focus to helping him with his new passion in the sport and began utilizing many of the successful techniques she had learned as a rider. When Josh rocketed through the ranks from complete newbie to Category 1 in just two years, people took notice and asked Julie to coach them.
With a stream of success stories, her coaching exploded and by 2002, she decided to form her own team. A year later, it became the most successful Pro 1-2 Men's team in the Midwest and one of the elite cycling programs in the country. After merging her team with another in 2004, Carter directed and coached it to be one of the few top professional development squads in the country. For the next four years, she continued to coach riders with many different goals and skill levels and was involved with several other professional teams.
Carter was hired as the director of cycling and head coach at Midwestern State University in Wichita Falls, Texas in 2008. During her four years at the school, the program won the conference championship for road and track every season in the overall team, Women's A, Men's A, Women's B, and Men's B categories, and she personally coached cyclists to three Division I National Championships.
While she grew up in central Illinois near Decatur, she and her family have called the St. Louis area home since buying a house in Fairview Heights, Ill. in 2004. Julie, Josh, and their five children now reside in St. Charles, Mo. Â
July 2016Â Â Â Â
