Director of Cross Country and Track & Field:
Christopher Straub

Christopher Straub enters his tenth year at Elizabethtown College and was appointed Director of Cross Country and Track & Field in July, 2007. For the first time since 2001, Straub adds head coaching responsibilities of the women’s cross country team, in addition to his role as head coach of the men’s cross country team. Straub takes over a national-caliber women’s cross country program crafted by former head women’s cross country coach, Mike Dager, who left to take a full-time position at Gwynedd-Mercy College.

During the track & field season, Coach Straub will oversee the operation of the entire program, while training the men’s middle-distance and distance runners. Coach Joel Hoffsmith and Eric Bennett ’04 will remain on staff in 2007-08 to continue their mentoring roles of the men’s and women’s long sprinters, jumpers, and multi-event athletes. New additions to the coaching staff include Coach Brian Falk who will serve as an assistant coach for the men’s and women’s cross country programs during the fall and take over the reigns of the women’s middle-distance and distance runners during the track & field season. Coach Erin Lichti ’06 returns to Etown in 2007-08 and will serve as the Head Women’s Track & Field Coach providing leadership for the women’s team and training both men and women in the short sprints/hurdles/relays.

Elizabethtown College has experienced unprecedented success since the arrival of Coach Straub in July 1998. His career at Etown reads like a rags-to-riches storybook as together with a phenomenal coaching staff they have turned around two struggling cross country programs and started track & field programs from scratch! Since 1999, when the men’s cross country team started its school-record streak of eight consecutive Middle-Atlantic Conference team titles, all six programs have won a combined 18 conference team titles. In 2003-04 and 2006-07 (freshmen and senior years of the class of 2007), Etown men won “Triple Crowns” or MAC titles in cross country, indoor track & field, and outdoor track & field in the same academic year. Etown is also a regular participant at the NCAA Division III Cross Country, Indoor, and Outdoor Track & Field Championships with all six programs having finished amongst the top 20 teams since 2004.

Etown programs are known for having both conference level depth and national-caliber quality. A total of 171 men and women cross country and track & field athletes have achieved All-MAC honors since 1998. Fifteen athletes have produced 27 All-American performances in each of the six sports under during Straub’s tenure. After several National Runner-Up performances over the years, it was in 2007 at the NCAA Division III Indoor Track & Field Championships held at the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in Terre Haute, Indiana, that an Etown track & field athlete was dubbed National Champion. Coached by alumnus, Eric Bennett ’04, then junior Kevin Clark ’08 jumped 17-1-1/2” in the pole vault to become Etown’s first-ever National Champion in track & field.

Coach Straub has been honored by his peers by being named the MAC Coach of the Year sixteen times over the past eight years.  During 2006-07, he was named the MAC Men’s Coach of the Year in cross country, indoor track & field, and outdoor track & field as the men swept conference titles in all three sports for the second-time ever.  Most recently, Straub was named the MAC Women’s Cross Country Coach of the Year after the women placed four runners in the top five at the 2007 MAC Cross Country Championships.  The victory marked the second-ever team title in the program’s 27-year history with the first-ever coming in 2004 under the direction of Coach Mike Dager.  In November, 2002 Straub was named the NCAA Division III Mideast Regional Cross Country Coach of the Year as Dustin Scott ’03 (24:54) and Matt Rockwell ’05 (24:58) went 1-2 out of a field of 230 runners over the 8k course at Salisbury University to lead Elizabethtown College to their only regional championship.  That same semester the men’s cross country team posted the highest GPA of any NCAA Division III men’s cross country team in the nation with a cumulative team GPA of 3.54.

Prior to coming to Elizabethtown College, Coach Straub worked with student-athletes at Susquehanna University (PA), East Carolina University (NC), and Miami University (OH). Straub graduated cum laude in 1993 from James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia with a bachelor’s degree in psychology. He then went on to earn a master’s degree in 1995 in sport science from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. In 1992, he was the team captain and MVP of JMU’s cross country team. At the 1992 CAA Championships, Straub finished 3rd only behind eventual Olympic Trials track & field competitors Brian Hyde (William & Mary) and Matt Holthaus (JMU). The 1992 squad beat conference rival William & Mary to win JMU’s first-ever conference title in men’s cross country.

Coach Straub and his wife, Traci, have two daughters, Seneca (8) and Milligan (4).

Contact Coach Straub at straubce@etown.edu