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Men's Cross Country

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Occidental's Engle to Step Down As Cross Country/Track Coach
September 9, 2006

Troy Engle, Occidental's head cross country and track and field coach since 1999, will resign in November to become head coach of the U.S. Paralympics track and field team, announced athletic director Dixon Farmer last week.

Assistant coach Robert Bartlett will serve as interim track and field coach and business manager during the search for Engle's replacement.

"We are losing a terrific teacher, coach, and friend in Troy Engle," says Farmer. "Troy has worn a lot of hats in his 7 ½ years at Occidental and has been a wonderful soldier for the department. He will be sorely missed."

The Occidental cross-country programs enjoyed a remarkable turnaround during Engle's tenure. In four seasons, the women's cross-country team went from last place to a SCIAC Championship in 2002. The men's team, which fielded a squad of only two runners in Engle's first season, finished second in 2004, just seven points shy of SCIAC champion Pomona-Pitzer.

Both squads landed second in 2005, the best combined SCIAC finish since 1995. The Tiger harriers excelled in the classroom as well - the women earning a 3.51 cumulative GPA, the highest of any SCIAC school and 28th in NCAA Division III. The men ranked 44th with a 3.26.

In track & field, Engle tripled the size of the men's and women's squads, growing a combined roster of 20 student-athletes to over 70 in just one year. Occidental track and field produced a 18 SCIAC individual medalists and sent eight student-athletes to the NCAA Division III National Championships during Engle's tenure.

Engle coached three All-Americans: Marisa Omori, 2001, pole vault; Justin Gruber, 2004, javelin; and Kristen Stuart, 2004, 200 & 400 meters.

"While it will be tough to leave Oxy, I am honored beyond words to have been chosen to coach the U.S. Paralympic team," offers Engle. "This will be an exciting new chapter in my life, one I am not entering into lightly. Paralympians and Paralympic hopefuls deserve a support network and coaching staff every bit as passionate about the program as they are."

Olympic games for athletes with physical disabilites were first organized in Rome in 1960 and became known as the Paralympics in 1976. Since 1988, the Paralympic Games have been held in the same venues as the Olympic Games with the 2008 games scheduled for September 6-17 in Beijing, China.