When Dartmouth’s Steve Mangan ’14 crossed the finish line in the mile race at the indoor Ivy League Heptagonal Championships in Hanover in March, he shattered the Ivy record by nearly three seconds. The previous record-holder — Courtney Jaworski of the University of Pennsylvania — had run his best in 2006 but will soon return to Hanover in a different context, as the head coach of Dartmouth’s women’s cross country team and an assistant coach on the track and field teams.
Jaworski, whose appointment was announced yesterday, will replace Mark Coogan, who departed the College in mid-January for the New Balance running sports marketing division, where he coaches the company’s elite athletes. He has since coached the Big Green part time from Boston and will continue through the rest of the season.
The teams have enjoyed extraordinary success over the past several years. The women’s team won the Ivy League championship in cross country, nabbed second in the indoor Ivy League Heptagonal Championships and finished seventh at the indoor NCAA championships, the highest finish ever for an Ivy League team.
The school received a total of close to 90 applications for the position, head men’s coach Barry Harwick said. After reviewing the applications, Harwick and senior associate athletics director for peak performance Drew Galbraith, who led the search process, conducted phone interviews with 11 before selecting four to bring to campus. Here, candidates met the team and other staff members at in-person interviews.
“Courtney’s application hit each of our key variables,” Harwick said. “We’re looking for a coach who is going to come in and hit the ground running. Courtney impressed every single person he interacted with.”
After graduation, he moved to the Oregon Track Club Elite, Nike’s premier Olympic development distance and middle distance team. He then coached at Smith College and the University of Puget Sound before moving to Manhattanville College, where he has coached for the past year.
As a runner for the Quakers, Jaworski finished seventh in the 800-meters at the 2005 NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships and twice won the most outstanding male athlete at the indoor Ivy League Heptagonal Championships.
While the Big Green will lose star Abbey D’Agostino ’14 next year, five of the team’s seven cross country runners who competed in the Ivy League Championship last year will be returning. This situation gave Dartmouth many qualified coaching candidates.
“In some ways, it was kind of an embarrassment of riches with the people who came to campus,” Galbraith said. “So then it allows you, as someone doing the hiring, to really split hairs in the best way possible. With all of that, Courtney was our number-one choice.”
Galbraith said that the ideal candidate would understand the “duality of purpose” of an Ivy League runner and could imagine a future for the team without this year’s success as a ceiling.
The department also met with returning athletes to determine qualities they sought in a new coach, which included competitive running experience and an understanding of the tensions of being an Ivy League athlete.
“I think it’s really cool that coach Jaworski went to UPenn as an undergrad,” Dana Giordano ’16 said. “I think that’s great to have a coach that really understands the balance between academics and athletics because that’s why a lot of us went to Dartmouth.”
Dartmouth’s hire of Jaworksi was the first Division I cross countryposition filled this year, Harwick said, as the team bucked the trend to wait until the track season’s conclusion to select a coach.
The early announcement will allow Jaworski extra time to visit campus in May and June to get to know the athletes and staff and find a place to live, he said.
Giordano said she anticipates working with Jaworski over the summer and showing him the trails through Hanover in addition to the team’s training trip to the Second College Grant.
“It’s nice to know and not have that uncertainty and plan for the future,” she said. “I think it’s nice to have a name and a coach to work with going forward.”
Jaworski’s background and success in the Ivy League contributed largely to the hiring decision, Galbraith said.
Jaworksi agreed that being a former Ivy athlete gives him a greater understanding of the athletics-academic balancing act that athletes juggle.
“There’s a lot going on with these athletes — they’re very, very busy and just kind of understanding how to juggle all that and still help produce national-caliber and Heptagonal winners within the conference,” he said.
Jaworski cited the Big Green’s current strength as a factor that boosted the position’s appeal. He said he is focused on continuing the team’s recent success and building on its positive culture. The team, he said, seems like a family.
As a coach, he reviews both outcome and process goals with the team to improve overall performance. Jaworski plans to look at Coogan’s strategy and build off it as he begins his career at Dartmouth.
The Big Green cross country and track programs include six coaches who each focus on different areas but work together during the season, so interactions among the coaching staff are also critical, Harwick said.
Jaworski said he looks forward to being able to focus on female distance runners after running an entire program at Manhattanville.
Though Jaworski does not have Division I coaching experience, Galbraith said the incoming coach had a clearly articulated philosophy behind his prior positions that fit well with the Dartmouth model.
“He has a strong belief in the liberal arts education,” Galbraith said. “He specifically wanted to be in non-scholarship settings where students were running because they loved it, and they loved the opportunities they had educationally, so I think he quickly answered that question.”
