Instructor Bio
Hey, everyone!
My name is Hayden Coombs. I have been teaching at the college-level since 2015, and I absolutely love teaching.
I was born and raised in Salem, Oregon. I grew up playing just about every sport I could, but fell in love with basketball early on, and played almost every day until I graduated high school. I was a terrible student, barely graduating high school and needing to take summer courses to do so. Going to class and completing my homework was a struggle every single day for me until I graduated. But, once I graduated high school, I moved to Idaho for college where I learned that high school success (or unsuccess) does not equal college success.
In the middle of my undergrad, I spent a few years on a service mission in Portugal, where I learned fluent Portuguese and developed a love of seafood. Once I got home from Portugal, I got serious about school and decided that I wanted to be a sportswriter.
I majored in Communication (journalism) and English (creative writing) from BYU-Idaho. While I was still working on my degree, I completed an internship with the sports website BleacherReport.com, and got to fulfill my dream of writing about the NBA. After my internship, I actually got to stay on with Bleacher Report and cover the NBA Draft from 2011-2014. During this time, I also completed my degree and married my beautiful wife, Summer.
After a few years of writing full-time, my wife and I decided to settle down and focus more on our family. I ended up accepting a position in the athletics department at Southern Utah University in December 2014. At SUU, I was able to earn my master’s degree and start teaching courses as an adjunct faculty, which is how I learned that teaching was my true passion. After spending a few years with the SUU Athletic Department, in 2016, I accepted a position with the communication department teaching journalism and sports media courses full-time. Since 2017, I have also been managing the student-media outlets, the University Journal (newspaper) and its corresponding news site, SUUNews.net.
I am also currently earning my Ph.D. in Education. I have made education my career because it has the power to change everyone’s life for the better. As mentioned earlier, I love teaching because I am able to forge so many meaningful connections with my colleagues and students. There is no better feeling as a teacher than when your students no longer need you, and I will do everything in my power to get you to that spot, too. I am also completing my Ph.D. online, too, so I can empathize with that online student lifestyle!
My wife and I have been married for almost 10 years. We have two littles girls, Avery (8) and Reese (5), and a little monster… I mean boy… named Finley (2). Even though I can’t run and jump like I used to, I still love to play basketball, read and write about sports, play with my kids, and cook with my wife. I also love watching TV….NBA, college sports, the Bachelor (Sean Lowe for life), and Chopped, to name a few.
I encourage each of you to reach out to your professors, myself included, and start finding what it is that you are passionate about. It wasn’t until I discovered communication studies that I became a good student, so put in the work now to figure out what makes you tic!
As always, I remind you that I am available to help you in any way that I can. Please don’t be shy or ever hesitate to reach out. Email me at HCoombs@aiuniv.edu and I will respond as soon as I can.
Course Overview Video
Hayden Coombs 