Coach Coplen (pronounced Coe-plen) has been coaching distance runners for over fifteen years, 13 years at the high school level. He is passionate about building teams of high character individuals that believe in the mantra “when your teammates success is just as important to you as your own success then you have taken a very necessary step in reaching your potential” as well as "the quickest way to destroy something beautiful is to compare it to something else"

That belief has led to a significant amount of success through the years. Coach Coplen has coached five teams in four different seasons, at two different schools, that have finished the season in the DyeStat National rankings, four of those teams finishing in the top ten in the country, with one in the top five in the country.

He has coached a three time All-American, sophomore and junior national class record holder. He has coached Colorado state champions in XC as well as Track & Field in the 800, 1600 and 3200 as well as a 4x800 state championship team. His runners have won those state championships over six different years since 2012, meaning that Coach Coplen has coached an individual or team state champion in six of his twelve years of coaching in Colorado.

This past season, his first year of coaching at Chaparral High School, he helped coach the 5A boys state champion, and oversaw the emergence of the Chap Girls XC team that finished 3rd in the state, 6th at NXR Southwest and 27th in the country. Before this past year, the Chap girls had not been ranked in the top 10 in the state in over fifteen years.