University of Maine Athletics

Gardner joined the Maine staff in the summer of 2023 after a brief stint at the University of Arizona and one season at the University of Colorado. After a year mentoring the tight ends, Gardner was named the wide receivers coach and recruiting coordinator in March of 2024.

Prior to a one month stop as an offensive graduate assistant where he worked with the tight ends at the University of Arizona from March to April 2023, Gardner served as a defensive graduate assistant at the University of Colorado for the 2022 season. While at Colorado, Gardner worked closely with the defensive line unit.

Before his time at Colorado, Gardner was on staff at Austin Peay State University, where he was the assistant defensive backs coach for the 2021 season. Gardner, who was also the scouting coordinator for six months at Austin Peay State, was promoted to recruiting coordinator his last two months on the staff, helping sign the Governor's 2022 recruiting class.
 
He previously spent a year-and-a-half on the University of Missouri staff (February 2020-June 2021), first as an offensive graduate assistant working with the receiver, and then as a recruiting analyst for his last six months in Columbia.  His first taste of coaching came at his alma mater, the University of Washington, where he was an offensive assistant for the 2019 season. He worked mainly with the receivers and at times with the quarterbacks and had general duties in assistant with projects for the assistant coaches, including video breakdown.
 
Gardner graduated from Washington in 2018 with a bachelor's degree in mathematics and economics. He lettered three years as a receiver for the Huskies, and was on the 2016 team that defeated CU for the Pac-12 Conference title and earned a berth in the College Football Playoff (the second Pac-12 school to do so).  Academically, he was on the Dean's List throughout his college career and was Academic All-Pac-12 on two occasions (first-team as a junior; second-team as a senior). in 2013 and 2014.