Nick Zostautas is in his tenth season at the helm of the UIC strength and conditioning department. He currently oversees all of UIC's Varsity Athletic Teams and works directly with men's soccer, baseball and softball. In his 10 years at UIC, Zostautas has been on the staff of 25 Horizon League Championship teams.
In 2015, Zostautas was honored with the title of Master Strength and Conditioning Coach by the Collegiate Strength and Conditioning Coaches Association (CSCCa). This prestigious distinction has been earned by fewer than 200 strength coaches nationwide in the organization's 16 years of existence.
Zostautas joined the Flames after serving as an assistant strength and conditioning coach at Northwestern for six seasons. During his tenure in Evanston, Ill., he worked with a variety of teams, including the football program and he also trained NCAA tournament-qualifying men's soccer and wrestling teams.
From January through May of 2001, Zostautas had his first experience in training a national-caliber team as he assisted head strength coach, Paul Goldberg, of the Colorado Avalanche. The Avalanche squad would go to win the Stanley Cup during the 2001 season.
In just a matter of months Zostautas produced his second national championship team as he served as a graduate assistant strength coach at North Dakota, where he helped the Fighting Sioux football program to a NCAA Division II National Championship in 2001. Zostautas first entered the field as an intern at Northwestern, where he was an intern during the summer of 2000.
Zostautas attended Colorado State, where he was a student-athlete as a member of the 1996-97 Rams football team, in addition to being a thrower on the track and field team from 1997-2001. Zostautas graduated from Colorado State in 2001 with a bachelor's degree in health and exercise science, before he added a master's degree in kinesiology from North Dakota in 2003.
Zostautas is certified and a member of the National Strength & Conditioning Association (CSCS), the Collegiate Strength and Conditioning Coaches Association (SCCC) while also being certified as a Sport Performance Coach from USA Weightlifting.
Zostautas and his wife, Ann, have two daughters, Logan and Emerson.
