Principia College has a rich tradition in Track and Field including 34 NCAA DIII All-Americas, three Olympic trials qualifiers and an Olympic team member. Today’s team is as strong as ever. The men’s team won the past three USCAA Championships while the women’s team was runners-up. Furthermore, we’ve had nine All-America performances in the past 4 years. Most recently, Senior captains, Rachel Charlston and Lewis Howes made the automatic qualification standards in their respective events and performed well enough to score! Rachel repeated her All-America performance of 2004 in the hammer throw with an 8th place finish but this year it took 165 feet to square it away. Lewis grabbed his first All-America honor in the decathlon (8th place - 6671 pts.) In 2004 junior Rachel Charlston earned All-American honors in the hammer with an 8th place finish (157’8”), while freshman Jenna Edginton took placed 12th at the Championships (Javelin – 132’10”), barely missing All-American honors. In 2003, Kristina Muller and Stephanie Hood grabbed All America honors both indoor and outdoors. They joined forces to take 12th place at the indoor National Championships. Muller threw 54’0” to grab 3rd place in the 20lb wt throw while, Hood ran 16:50.40 to nab 2nd place in the 5000m run. They both duplicated their performance in the outdoor season with Muller placing second in the hammer (181’2”), and Hood finishing 3rd in the 10,000m run (34:15.88).
Philosophy
Every student at Principia has the opportunity to run track and cross country if they make a commitment to train for competitive success, to improve their performance over the course of the season, and to contribute metaphysically to individual and team progress.
Goals
The track and field coaching staff's goals are to have each athlete commit to the pursuit of excellence and a lifetime best performance. We believe that students who commit to the pursuit of excellence will develop and improve qualities of character such as discipline, persistence, and patience. This work ethic will serve them well in their track and field careers as well as in any future endeavor. Therefore, the staff will create an environment that supports this pursuit for each individual. Athletes, in concert with their coaches, will set personal performance goals and identify and target process goals.
