ATLANTA-- Georgia State athletics welcomes Charnay Ryland as the head coach of the women's track and field coach, Director of Athletics Charlie Cobb announced Monday afternoon. 
 
Ryland comes to Georgia State from the University of Georgia, where she served as the assistant coach for sprints and hurdles from Aug. 2024-Aug. 2025. 
 
In her most recent position, Ryland's assistance with the University of Georgia's sprinters and hurdlers played pivotal roles in the Bulldogs collecting their first NCAA women's outdoor team crown and the men and women each taking second at the 2025 NCAA Indoor Championships. 

Prior to her time in Athens, she spent two seasons at the University of Michigan as an assistant coach and recruiting coordinator, where she worked with the sprinters, hurdlers and jumpers. Ryland has coached her student-athletes to a combined 46 NCAA All-America between stops at Michigan and Lee University.
 
During her time in Ann Arbor, Ryland assisted in coaching one national champion, one Olympic finalist, one World Champion finalist, 11 individual NCAA All-Americans and two All-American relay teams. Her student-athletes earned six individual Big Ten titles and two in the relays, and she coached and assisted in coaching 11 school records. She was a member of two Big Ten Championship teams at Michigan and guided eight individuals and two relay teams to the NCAA Preliminary round. 

During the 2023-24 season, Aasia Laurencin and Savannah Sutherland made NCAA Championships appearances in both the indoor and outdoor seasons while Dubem Amene made an NCAA Indoor Championship appearance under Ryland's guidance. Sutherland won a pair of Big Ten titles in the indoor 400-meter dash and the outdoor 400m hurdles, defending her hurdles title from 2023. She finished on the podium at both the NCAA Indoor and Outdoor Championships, earning First Team All-America honors for each performance. Sutherland's NCAA Outdoor Championship run saw her finish second and set the program and Canadian national record in the semifinals (54.04) and the finals (53.26). Laurencin took home the 60m hurdles Big Ten title and defended her 100m hurdles title, earning podium finishes and First Team All-America honors at the Indoor and Outdoor NCAA Championships. In the 60m hurdles semi-finals at the NCAA Indoor Championships, she ran a 7.99 as just the third Wolverine to break eight seconds. Amene finished third in the 400m at the Big Ten Indoor Championships before claiming the Big Ten Outdoor Championship title in the event to cap his career at U-M, also setting the indoor (45.75) and outdoor (45.36) 400m programs records.
 
Both the men's and women's DMR teams took home silver at the Big Ten Indoor Championships, with the men's team setting the program record (9:43.96) and advancing to the NCAA Indoor Championships. Sutherland and Amene both qualified for the 2024 Olympics, with Amene representing Nigeria in the 4x400m relay and Sutherland representing Canada in the 400m hurdles.

During her first indoor season in 2022-23, she helped coach the women's team to an indoor Big Ten Championship, along with assisting in leading four athletes to individual Big Ten event titles. Ryland also coached two athletes and one relay to NCAA All-American Honors at the 2023 NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships. The U-M Women's team won the outdoor title, with Ryland helping lead Ziyah Holman to a record-setting performance in both the 200m and 400m while winning the 400m. Holman advanced to the NCAA Championships after finishing second at the NCAA East Preliminaries, earning a sixth-place finish and First Team All-America honors. Ryland also assisted in coaching Holman in NACAC. Holman went on to compete for Team USA at the NACAC U23 Championships where she returned home with a silver medal in the 400m and a gold medal from the 4x400m relay. 

Ryland assisted in the hurdle performances of Aasia Laurencin and Savannah Sutherland, with Sutherland winning the NCAA 400m hurdle title as well as the Canadian Title. Ryland coached the 4x400m indoor and outdoor relay teams, setting the program record at the Big Ten Outdoor Championships in a narrow second-place finish. The 4x400m relay team of Nikki Stephens, Sophie Isom, Aurora Rynda and Ziyah Holman punched their ticket to the NCAA Outdoor Championships, finishing 13^th and coming just over a tenth-of-a-second behind the school record time. Joshua Zeller and Dubem Amene saw success in 2023 as well, with Zeller earning a silver medal at the Big Ten Outdoor Championships in the 110m hurdles and Amene winning the indoor 400m title, followed by a third place finish outdoors.

Ryland came to Ann Arbor from Tennessee's Lee University, where she most recently served as associate head coach of the track and field team. She left Lee University with an impressive track record, guiding the women's track and field team to four Gulf South Conference (GSC) outdoor championship titles and three indoor GSC championship titles, along with an additional GSC outdoor and indoor championship title for the men's team. In 2022, she was named USTFCCCA South Region Men's Indoor Track and Field Assistant Coach of the Year before earning women's assistant coach of the year honors during the outdoor season. She became associate head coach at Lee in May of 2020 after serving as assistant coach from 2016 to 2020. Ryland was named USTFCCCA South Region Men's Indoor Track and Field Assistant Coach of the Year for the first time in 2018, earning the same honor outdoors in 2021. 
 
Prior to her time with Lee University, Ryland served as head track and field coach at Mount Anthony Union High School and Assistant Women's Basketball Coach at Southern Vermont College simultaneously. Ryland was a National Champion, All-American and school record-holder in the triple jump, long jump, and 4x100m while attending Montgomery Junior College (Md.). She then went on to Montreat College (N.C.) where she was an All-American and national champion, setting a school record in the triple jump. Ryland was a multi-sport athlete playing basketball at Montgomery and Montreat.

After graduating with a degree in Communications from Montreat College in 2015, Ryland went on to earn her Master's of Education in Higher Education from Lee University in 2018. She was inducted into the Montreat College Hall of Fame in 2022.

Outside of her coaching career, she has served as a dental tech in the U.S. Air Force Reserve since 2020.