A COACHES ROUNDTABLE Reece Vega, North Dakota State University. Vega is currently a third-year sprints/hurdles coach at North Dakota State University in Fargo, ND, where he was an All-American sprinter. He has been remarkably successful at his alma mater, having guided athletes to numerous all-conference honors and adding many performers to the all-time Bison “Top Ten” list. Vega, who has coached 35 All-Americans, came to NDSU from the University of Mary in Bismarck, ND, where he was ultra-successful. Now in his 16th year of coaching, Vega was named the NSIC “Indoor Assistant Coach of the Year” in 2019 and 2020, and the Central Region “Coach of the Year” in 2018. Vega is a former head coach at College of Saint Rose in Albany, NY, and at Graceland University in Lamoni, Iowa. Curtis Taylor, University Oregon. The associate head coach for the Ducks, Taylor joined the Oregon staff in 2014 after a very successful stint at Laney College in California. He is in his ninth year overall at Oregon and sixth as associate head coach. He has guided Ducks to eight individual NCAA titles, 26 individual PAC-12 conference championships and is an eight-time “West Region Assistant Coach of the Year.” Taylor is a three-time NCAA Division I “National Assistant Coach of the Year” and in 2017 guided Jenna Prandini, the 2015 Bowerman winner. Taylor has been a part of 10 NCAA team championships while at Oregon. Ernie Clark, San Jose State University(CA). Clark is in his second year as the sprint/ hurdles coach at San Jose State after a long, very successful career at Ashland in Ohio where he had been associate head coach since 2015. Clark was a seven-time regional “Coach of the Year” and a fourtime “National Assistant Coach of the Year” while at Ashland. He coached 85 Division II national qualifiers, had 45 All-Americans and 13 national champions at Ashland, which won indoor national titles in 2018, 2019, 2020, and outdoor national championships in 2018 and 2019. Clark has coached a number of Olympic trials qualifiers, including Myles Pringle and Trevor Bassitt, the 400-meter bronze medalist in the recent World Championships in Eugene. Reynaldo Radlin, Grand Valley State University (MI). Coach Radlin is in his fifth year as the sprint/hurdles coach at the highly successful GVSU in Michigan. A former high school coach in Phoenix, Radlin has coached 25 national qualifiers and 19 10
techniques AUGUST 2023
All-Americans for the Lakers. He began his coaching career at Troy (AL) and was there from 2015-2018. Radlin graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where he was an Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) champion in the 400-meter hurdles. He earned his master’s degree in “Sport and Fitness Management” from Troy University. Kebba Tolbert, Harvard University. Tolbert is in his 12th year as the associate head coach at Harvard University where he oversees the women’s sprints, hurdles, horizontal jumps and heptathlon. Tolbert started his coaching career at Iowa Wesleyan and has developed All-Americans and conference champions at a number of different levels, including NCAA Divisions I and III and NAIA. His very successful coaching stops have included McKendree (IL) Syracuse, Portland State (Head Coach) and UTEP, prior to Harvard. He is a many-time “Assistant Coach of the Year” and has been an instructor at the USTFCCCA Academy for over a decade. Coach Tolbert has an undergraduate degree from Colby College in Maine and a master’s degree from Smith College (MA). Mark Mueller, Duke University. The ninth- year associate head coach at Duke oversees sprints, hurdles, and relays. He was named the 2021 Southeast Region “Assistant of the Year” following Duke’s first-ever ACC outdoor championship. Mueller has coached Madeline Price, Steven Soloman and Brittany Aveni to world stage finals in the long sprints. Lauren Hoffman, another one of Mueller’s athletes, placed third in the NCAA championships in the 400-meter hurdles in 2022. Coach Mueller was both a football and track and field athlete at Stanford, and received his master’s degree in Theological studies from Duke. LaRon Bennett, University of Virginia. Bennett joined the Cavaliers in 2021 as the sprint, hurdles and relays coach after a very successful stint at Belhaven, a Division III school in Mississippi where he was the director of track and field and cross country. From 2012 to 2017, Bennett was at Drake University in Iowa where he served as co-head coach in his final year. Coach Bennett started his coaching career at Georgia, where he was a three-time All-American for the Bulldogs. Bennett competed in the 400-meter hurdles at four different Olympic trials. The nine questions and the responses by all seven of the coaches are listed below. Some answers have been edited for the sake of brevity, clarity, and grammatical correct-
ness. 1. What is the biggest limiting factor for you in how you train 400-meter hurdlers and how do you work to control or eliminate it? Reece Vega: For us at NDSU, it’s weather. Luckily, we have an indoor facility that helps. It’s tough for us to develop a stride pattern until it is nice enough to get outdoors. Curtis Taylor: The biggest limiting factor is time. So often you must have workouts that cater to both hurdles and make decisions with regards to which hurdle event will likely be the most successful for the athlete. Ernie Clark: The biggest limiting factor is always speed. You can’t run the 400 hurdles fast without being fast! I continuously try to improve sprint technique and speed from 30 meters to 400 meters to help improve the athlete’s potential in the 400 hurdle race. The second BIGGEST limiting factor is the inability to use both lead legs. Therefore, I always make athletes drill and use both legs. There will never be progress in the 400 hurdles for young people without taking steps from the race and alternating at some point. THEY MUST BE ABLE TO USE BOTH LEGS TO REACH FULL POTENTIAL. Reynaldo Radlin: The ability to get race model repetitions on the outdoor track during the winter months is limited. However, having a 300-meter track with hurdle marks allows us to be creative and prepared. Kebba Tolbert: I don’t know that there are any significant factors besides the time and energy of the athlete. Mark Mueller: I think the biggest limiting factor varies based on the athlete. Speed and running efficiency are essential, but I would say, specifically to hurdling, steering is critical. Anything that breaks momentum is compounded as the race progresses. We work a lot at addressing all factors that lead to speed loss navigating the barriers. The specifics of what contributes to loss in momentum varies from athlete to athlete, so I try to take an individual approach with each of my athletes. LaRon Bennett: The biggest factor for me is usually matching an athlete’s speed to the most efficient hurdle race plan. We do a lot