Heather Cairns was hired in the fall of 2024 as the Associate Athletic Director of Internal Operations and Idaho State’s Senior Woman Administrator. Along with that, she also serves as the sport administrator for women’s soccer and the track & field program here at Idaho State. She comes from a strong athletics background and shares a passion for the bigger picture when it comes to the student-athletes! Cairns wants to improve the student-athlete experience from relationships, to coaches, to facilities, to their academics and overall support.
Cairns previously worked at the University of Missouri-Columbia in multiple roles of Director of Operations. Her most recent work was the women’s tennis program and before that she was working with the women’s soccer program in Missouri. In total she spent three years and two months working with these programs, who competed at the some of the highest levels in the NCAA in the Southeastern Conference (SEC). Cairns worked day to day to make sure these programs needs were taken care of and athletes were ready to compete!
Before her role of in operations Cairns was the Head Women’s Soccer Coach at Utah State University for 18 years! She stands as the winningest head soccer coach in their school history with a record of 165-140-40. During her time as a head coach, she was named a two-time Western Athletic Conference Coach of the Year, earning the accolade in 2008 and 2011.
During Cairns’ tenure, the Aggies earned nine conference Player of the Year honors. Under Cairns, Utah State earned 22 all-Big West honors, 37 all-WAC awards and added 14 all-MW accolades. In the classroom, USU was strong as well, and gathered 55 academic all-Big West, 123 academic all-WAC and 98 academic all-MW accolades. Cairns also led the team to 16-straight NSCAA Team Academic Awards.
Before becoming the head coach at Utah State, Cairns spent four years as an assistant coach at Creighton. In her time at CU, the Bluejays went from a 7-13-1 record in 1999 to winning the 2002 Missouri Valley Conference championship with a 12-8-2 overall record. Additionally, Creighton qualified for the 2002 NCAA Tournament for the first time in the program’s history. During her time at Creighton she helped produced an NSCAA regional All-American, 18 all-conference players, six freshmen all-conference honorees, 13 academic all-conference selections and 11 NSCAA regional scholar-athletes.
Prior to her time at Creighton, Cairns spent two years as an assistant at New Mexico from 1997-98 and worked as a graduate assistant coach for three years (1994-96) at St. Ambrose University in Davenport, Iowa.
An Erie, Pennsylvania native, Cairns earned her bachelor’s degree in Biology in 1994 from Canisius College in Buffalo, New York, where she was a four-year letterwinner and two-year captain of the women’s soccer team. She completed a second bachelor’s degree in Education while at St. Ambrose. She holds a “B” license from the United States Soccer Federation and an NSCAA Advanced National Diploma.
