Bruce Bickford, perhaps the most successful male distance runner Maine has ever produced, is returning to his home state to coach.

Bickford, a 1988 Olympian at 10,000 meters, was named head men’s cross country and track coach at the University of Southern Maine Wednesday. Bickford replaces Mike Towle, who held the post for five years.

Bickford has been the head men’s and women’s cross country and track coach at Brandeis University for the past seven years. During his tenure the Judges won two University Athletic Association (UAA) men’s cross country crowns and two women’s cross country titles. The women won four indoor and two outdoor track championships and the men won one indoor championship. He coached three NCAA Division III national champions and 35 All-Americans.

Bickford served as an assistant coach at Villanova University in 1993-94, helping the women’s squad win the 1993 Division I cross country title.

Bickford has also been an assistant at Northeastern University and a coach and administrator for the Nike Boston Track Club.

The Benton native graduated from Northeastern in 1980, where he earned four All-American honors. In 1985 he was ranked first in the world at 10,000 meters by Track and Field News.

He won the 1988 U.S. Olympic Trials in the 10,000 and competed in the Seoul Olympics. He made the U.S. national track and field team 12 times and the world cross country team four times.

Bickford inherits a USM team that won the Little East indoor and outdoor track titles and the New England Alliance indoor crown last year.