Staff Directory

Jason Zarb-Cousin

Title:
Assistant Coach
Email:

Jason Zarb-Cousin enters his third season with CSUN in 2026-27, serving as an assistant coach to the track & field teams as distance coach and guiding the CSUN cross country programs.

In 2026, Zarb-Cousin coached Matador distance runners to four all-top 10 marks during the 2026 indoor and outdoor track seasons, led by Lilit Arakelyan breaking CSUN's all-time women's 3000m-steeplechase record (10:41.91).

CSUN's 2025 cross country season saw a host of all-time top-10 performances, highlighted by Arakelyan setting a new women's 4k record. On the men's side, four distance athletes cracked the school's all-time 8k top-10 list and two women's athletes reached the all-time 6k top-10 list. The CSUN men's cross country team also posted its best Big West finish (seventh) since 2021.

Zarb-Cousin joined CSUN after spending the 2023 season at UC Santa Barbara. He worked closely with the Gauchos' distance runners last season, producing a top-29 West Region finisher. Also in his one season at UCSB, Zarb-Cousin helped the Gaucho men to a second-place finish at the Big West Cross Country Championship while Ethan Godsey finished third individually.

Zarb-Cousin spent the previous seven years (2016-23) at Loyola Marymount, serving as head coach of the Lions' men's cross country and track & field programs from 2021-23. He would lead the LMU cross country team to one of its best seasons ever, helping his runners make a seven-second improvement on the team's best 8,000-meter time and a 66-second improvement in the 10,000 meters.

Working with middle and long-distance runners on the track, Zarb-Cousin helped his student-athletes set school records in the 800-meter run and the 3,000-meter steeplechase. Two Lion steeplechasers achieved national recognition under his guidance, with one taking home second-team All-America honors and another finishing fifth at the USA Track & Field Under-20 meet.

Prior to his appointment as head coach at LMU, Zarb-Cousin spent five years as an assistant coach with both the Lions' men's and women's cross country and track & field teams. Under his tutelage, the Lions achieved their highest-ever finish at the NCAA Cross Country West Regional. Zarb-Cousin's stint at LMU was his second with the Lions, having begun his collegiate coaching career in Los Angeles as a volunteer assistant at LMU from 2005-2009. Between his two stints with the Lions, he served as a volunteer assistant coach at New Mexico from 2013-15 and was a men's and women's assistant coach as well as the director of operations at the Air Force Academy from 2009-10.

A 1999 graduate of the Air Force Academy, Zarb-Cousin is a retired Air Force Officer, having served for two decades. The Colorado Springs native earned his master of arts in physical education (social psychology of sport & physical activity concentration) from the University of Northern Colorado in 2003. He holds multiple USA Track & Field Level II Certifications.