PORTLAND, Ore.—Lewis & Clark College head football coach Joe Bushman announced the hiring of Daniel Fields as the program's new Defensive Coordinator on Tuesday afternoon.  

Fields comes to the Pioneers after spending the past decade at Division I UCLA. He played three seasons as a wide receiver for the program, before graduating and becoming a member of the Bruins coaching staff.  

"We are extremely excited about Dan joining our coaching staff up at L&C," Bushman said.  I believe he is a great fit and will mesh well with our current coaching staff.  Dan brings high level experience with us from UCLA and I believe will develop an innovative scheme which will make us tough on defense.  Dan is intelligent, organized, hard-working and hungry to take Lewis & Clark football to the next level." 

Over the past seven year, Fields has held a variety of roles at UCLA and has worked his way up from Assistant Recruiting & Operations Coordinator to a Defensive Analyst working with the Defensive Coordinator and the Inside Linebackers coach this past season. He has a deep knowledge of both sides of the ball, after spending his first three years as a coach working on the offensive side of the ball: one year each as an Assistant Recruiting & Operations Coordinator, Offensive Coach's Assistant and Offensive Recruiting Analyst. 

Under former NFL and University of Oregon coach Chip Kelly, Fields shifted his focus to defense. He was named a Defensive Graduate Assistant in February 2018.  In his new role, he worked directly with inside linebacker coach Don Pellum and also assisted with special teams. 

In March of 2020, Fields' responsibilities shifted and he began to work with defensive coordinator Jerry Azzinaro and the team's outside linebackers and defensive ends. He worked with Azzinaro and current Navy head coach Brian Newberry to build a new defensive scheme over the offense. He ran drills in practice for the team's edge rushers and outside linebackers and ran the team's daily offensive scout meetings and special teams scout team operations. On gamedays, Fields was charged with coaching the team's strongside linebackers on in-game adjustments. 

He was promoted to Defensive Analyst in March of 2022. He worked directly with defensive coordinator Billy McGovern and inside linebackers coach Ken Norton Jr and took on an expanded role. He helped build the defensive playbook, ran player meetings and walkthroughs and was charged with scripting offensive plays during the week. On gamedays, Fields worked directly with McGovern on personnel, tendencies and in-game adjustments. 

Fields graduated with his bachelor's from UCLA in December of 2016 and his Masters in Transformative Coaching and Leadership in December of 2021.