James Heiss serves as Georgia Southern’s director of football strength & conditioning, a position he assumed in 2024. Heiss spent the 2023 season as the associate director with Nebraska football and worked the previous four seasons at Buffalo.
In his time at Nebraska, Heiss oversaw the football strength & conditioning program in the absence of its head strength & conditioning coach. He led all weight room and on-field programming levels, designing, periodizing, and implementing year-round training. He was also responsible for the year-round training of all offensive and defensive linemen and assisted the coordinator of return to play with the return of acute injuries.
Heiss was the assistant director of strength and conditioning for football at Buffalo from 2019 to 2022. With the Bulls, he focused on the training and development of underclassmen and was also responsible for the return-to-play protocol for all injured student-athletes.
Before joining Buffalo, Heiss spent two seasons at Baylor in 2017 and 2018, working with Nebraska Head Football Strength & Conditioning Coach Corey Campbell on Matt Rhule’s staff. Heiss also specialized in player development at Baylor and trained more than a dozen future NFL players.
A certified strength & conditioning coach, Heiss began his career as a graduate assistant at Akron. He earned his master’s degree in sports science and administration from Akron in 2017. Heiss graduated with a bachelor’s degree in exercise science from Indiana University of Pennsylvania, where he was also a football team member. Heiss was a two-year letterwinner with the Crimson Hawks, serving as a special teams captain. He began his collegiate career at Akron.
Heiss is a National Strength and Conditioning Association member and a Collegiate Strength and Conditioning Coaches Association member.
He is joined in Statesboro by his wife, Gretchen. The couple had their first child, a daughter named MJ, in June of 2024.
