USTFCCCA Coaches Hall of Fame Class of 2024 Announced

NEW ORLEANS – The U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) is privileged to announce the six coaches who will be inducted into the USTFCCCA Coaches Hall of Fame as part of the Class of 2024.

Dave Cianelli, Frank Gramarosso, Ron Helmer, Jud Logan, Ford Mastin, and Connie Price-Smith will all be enshrined in the USTFCCCA Coaches Hall of Fame, for not only their historic and incredible accomplishments as cross country and/or track & field coaches, but also the long-lasting impact their contributions have had – and will continue to have – on the sports they coached.

QUICK LINK: USTFCCCA Coaches Hall of Fame History

These six coaches will be honored at the 2024 USTFCCCA Coaches Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony on Tuesday, December 17, at the USTFCCCA Convention, held at the Grande Lakes Resort in Orlando, Florida.

Started in 1995, the USTFCCCA Coaches Hall of Fame exists to recognize coaches who have brought great distinction to themselves, to their institutions and to the sports of cross country and track & field. Each of the honorees exemplifies the qualities of dedication to the sport, leadership and passion for their profession and serves as an inspiration to coaches everywhere.

Keep reading to learn more about the Class of 2024.

Dave Cianelli

Dave Cianelli’s workmanlike attitude defined his Hall-of-Fame career.

From humble beginnings as a volunteer assistant at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, where he worked numerous odd jobs to make ends meet, to being the Director of Track & Field and Cross Country at Virginia Tech, Cianelli instilled that same mindset into his athletes, who in turn competed at a high level under his watch.

Over a career that spanned more than 40 years, Cianelli-coached athletes combined to win 74 NCAA event titles, haul in more than 500 All-America honors, and capture more than 380 individual conference crowns. Team success was the norm, too, especially at Virginia Tech: Cianelli’s Hokies amassed 22 of his 32 conference titles and posted 13 top-10 team finishes at the NCAA Championships, highlighted by four podium finishes.

Cianelli put down roots in Blacksburg, Virginia, when he took over at Virginia Tech in 2001. Coaching the Hokies checked off three boxes for Cianelli and his wife Ellen: a chance for him to run his own program (in fact, it’s the first time Virginia Tech combined them); being at a large state university in a college town, rather than at a university in a pro-dominated metro; and it brought them closer to their native D.C.-Maryland area.

It didn’t take long for Cianelli to elevate the Hokies into a perennial contender, just like he did as an assistant at Cal Poly and SMU after that. Cianelli coached Spyridon Julien to an NCAA title in the weight throw in 2005, which would be the first of 20 NCAA event titles won by Virginia Tech athletes over the years. Then, the Hokie women captured the team title at the ACC Indoor Championships in 2007 – the first of 22 combined conference titles under Cianelli’s direction. Three years later, Queen Harrison won The Bowerman, collegiate track & field’s highest individual honor, after a record-breaking year that saw her become the first woman in NCAA history to win both the 100-meter and 400-meter hurdles at the same NCAA Championship.

He went out a winner, too. Virginia Tech swept the team titles at the ACC Indoor Championships in 2023 and then the women made it back-to-back crowns in 2024.

Cianelli is a 19-time USTFCCCA Regional Coach of the Year in track & field, including a sweep of the men’s indoor and outdoor honors from 2011 to 2013.

Frank Gramarosso

Frank Gramarosso always had an interest in coaching.

That interest developed into a passion, which beget a remarkable Hall-of-Fame career.

Gramarosso spent nearly four decades of his career at North Central College, where he started as a part-time assistant coach under fellow Hall-of-Famer Al Carius in 1983 (Carius was inducted in the USTFCCCA Coaches Hall of Fame in 2006). He shed the part-time label in 1985 and from there, history would be made in Naperville, Illinois.

Together, Carius and Gramarosso constructed an unparalleled collegiate dynasty, regardless of division and/or sport, over the next 37 years. As a program, the Cardinal men combined to win 25 NCAA team titles and 88 CCIW conference crowns, while athletes topped the NCAA podium 69 times following individual events and earned more than 500 All-America honors between cross country and both track & field seasons. Thirteen of those NCAA team titles came in cross country, where North Central finished first or second at the NCAA Championships 16 of 17 years between 1983-1999.

Gramarosso, himself, left an indelible mark on the program following his promotion to head coach of men’s track & field at the conclusion of a historic 2009-2010 academic year that saw the Cardinals complete the Triple Crown – consecutive titles in all three sports in the same academic year.

From 2010 until he retired following the 2022 outdoor season, Gramarosso’s teams captured five NCAA titles and amassed more than 200 All-America honors. Each of those titles were special in their own right: North Central swept the track & field slate clean in 2011 and then made it an indoor three-peat in 2012; then the Cardinals flew to national glory in 2017 and 2019, the first of which made them the first host of the NCAA DIII Indoor Championships to reign at the conclusion of the meet.

Gramarosso has been honored by the USTFCCCA numerous times. He is a five-time National Coach of the Year and a five-time Regional Coach of the Year. North Central has been named the Al Carius NCAA Division III Men’s Program of the Year four times under Gramarosso’s watch in 2011, 2012, 2018 and 2019.

Ron Helmer

Anyone who coaches for more than 50 years is bound to have at least one amazing story among a lifetime of memories.

Ron Helmer certainly gained one in 2013, prompting his own athletic director to say, “If it was a movie, you’d think it was too corny to be true.”

As Helmer prepared his Indiana men’s cross country team for the Big Ten Championships that fall, he was recovering from months of treatment for cancer and kidney failure. The stunning moment came on race day as his Hoosiers came from seemingly nowhere to win the program’s first team title in 33 years.

“I don’t know why that happened,” Helmer said. “I really don’t. I just know that it did.”

That’s just one of countless success stories in his Hall of Fame coaching career, which spanned 54 years (37 collegiately) before retiring at the end of the 2023 track & field season. Helmer passed away on July 4, 2024, at the age of 77.

Collegiately, Helmer had two coaching stops – 16 years as Director of Track & Field and Cross Country at Indiana after 21 years at Georgetown, where he began as a part-time volunteer and rose to positions of assistant coach and associate head coach before eight years as Director of Track & Field and Cross Country.

His athletes at both programs had great success, perhaps highlighted most by high jumper Derek Drouin, whose collegiate career culminated with him winning The Bowerman in 2013. Drouin also had tremendous post-collegiate triumphs, which included Olympic gold and silver medals. The Canadian won five of the six NCAA titles by Hoosier athletes under Helmer’s coaching/direction, joining Andy Bayer (2012 outdoor 1500).

Helmer’s memorable 2013 Big Ten men’s cross country title had company with a trio of men’s indoor track & field crowns as he mentored a total of 52 individual conference champions in cross country, indoor track & field and outdoor track & field.

Helmer was named Big Ten coach of the year the four times his Hoosiers won conference crowns, and he also earned USTFCCCA Mid-Atlantic Region Coach of the Year awards three times for women’s cross country while he was at Georgetown.

His Hoya athletes won four NCAA titles – Joline Staeheli (1996 indoor mile), Miesha Marzell (1996 outdoor 1500) and two women’s indoor distance medley relays (1997, 1999). He guided Hoya athletes to 213 Big East titles and 15 total team titles in cross country or track & field, and in 2019 he was inducted to the Georgetown Athletic Hall of Fame.

Helmer grew up on a wheat farm in Kansas, and the first Hall of Fame to induct him was his alma mater, Southwestern (Kan.), in 2004 (as an athlete he was team cross country or track captain six times). He joined older brother Jim, an earlier inductee as a NAIA Cross Country Hall of Fame coach for the Moundbuilders. The two are among seven members of the Helmer family to graduate from Southwestern, whose track is named the Helmer Family Track.

Jud Logan

Jud Logan’s athletic career wasn’t over when he began coaching at Ashland in 1995.

Indeed, by the time he made his fourth Olympic team in the hammer throw in 2004 he had already guided athletes to 23 NCAA Division II titles in throwing events.

His coaching accomplishments – and responsibilities – grew rapidly a year later when he became Ashland’s Head Track & Field Coach, leading the program to more success for the next 16 years before his death on January 3, 2022, at the age of 62.

Ultimately, Logan’s coaching success led the Eagles to three men’s NCAA DII titles (2019 indoor, 2019 outdoor, 2021  indoor – which were three track & field in succession as the 2020 competitions were wiped out by COVID-19). He was honored as USTFCCCA Coach of the Year five times nationally and 10 regionally.

The reach of Logan’s team success went beyond the athletic field. Known as a stickler for technique in competition, Logan had the same outlook when it came to academics in the classroom. His teams were named USTFCCCA Scholar Teams of the Year seven times while earning All-Academic Team honors on 14 occasions.

As with so many great coaches, Logan’s reach went beyond the numbers of conference and national achievements, and that became most evident in his final years when he was also a sought-after motivational speaker. His addresses included a graduating class at Ashland as a multi-time national championship coach as well as the football team at his alma mater Kent State.

His message was consistent: Be a “light giver – someone who sees more in you and helps light the path that you may have never seen or believed you could take, and then become one for others.”

That theme, says his brother Andy, resonated from Logan’s own coach, Al Schoterman, who earlier was an Olympic hammer thrower at Kent State and guided Logan to his first Olympic team in 1984. “Al Schoterman changed the course of Jud’s life,” Andy said.

Logan’s athletes included one of the most prolific ever – Kibwe Johnson’s heave of 25.08m (82-3½) in 2007 the 35-pound weight throw was an all-division collegiate best until 2015.

Johnson was one of five of Logan’s throwing athletes who earned USTFCCCA National DII Indoor Field Athlete of the Year honors along with Adriane Blewitt, Ryan Bloughney, Bryan Vickers and Kurt Roberts. All won three or more national indoor or outdoor titles along with Jackie Jeschelnig and Becky Ball.

Among the other athletes who earned national titles under the direction of Logan – a number which totaled 77 events – include Katie Nageotte (later Moon), the 2021 Olympic women’s pole vault gold medalist, and Trevor Bassitt, a four-time indoor or outdoor USTFCCCA Track Athlete of the Year. A total of 456 athletes earned All-American under coaching and/or direction.

This is the fourth Hall of Fame to induct Logan, joining the Kent State Varsity “K” (1990), Ohio Association of Track and Cross Country Coaches (2022) and National Throws Coaches Association (NTCA) Thrower’s (2015).

Ford Mastin

Ford Mastin’s first time as a collegiate head track & field coach was on very familiar territory as he had graduated from Oklahoma Baptist 20 years earlier.

During the next 27 years he led the Bison to many of its greatest successes in program history as Mastin’s teams won NAIA team titles ten times and added nine runner-up finishes in his first 19 years. Perhaps the most successful year was 2013, when his Bison teams swept the men’s and women’s indoor crowns and both finished second outdoors later that spring.

In 2016 and 2017, OBU also swept the men’s and women’s indoor and outdoor team titles at the National Christian Collegiate Athletic Association Championships, where the Bison competed during its transition from NAIA to NCAA Division II. He was named NAIA coach of the year on 11 occasions and added another eight such honors from the NCCAA.

OBU track & field athletes achieved amazing success under Mastin’s direction, winning 153 NAIA indoor or outdoor individual or relay titles and earning over 1,300 All-American awards.

Prime among his most celebrated athletes were Akela Jones, Jura Levy and Hannah (Helker) Fields. Jones won a total of 12 NAIA indoor or outdoor national titles in just two years at OBU, while Levy (12) and Fields (11) also had double-digit career titles.

OBU’s women’s 4×400 relay team was a dominant force for many years, winning 16 of a possible 19 indoor or outdoor titles from 2005 to 2015, including 11 straight (outdoor 2007 to outdoor 2012).

As great as his athletes and teams have been, Mastin takes most pride not in what happens on the track, but rather what happens in the lives of his athletes after they leave school – some of whom he sees again as coaches. In one Oklahoma high school state cross country championships he counted nine of his former athletes who were coaching.

This is the fifth Hall of Fame for Mastin, following induction into those of the Oklahoma Track Coaches Association (2008), Oklahoma Baptist University Athletics (2009), NAIA (2014) and Drake Relays (2019).

Interestingly, when Mastin graduated from OBU, becoming a track & field coach wasn’t in his plans – he originally wanted to build a career in music and ministry, which was understandable for anyone with a bachelor’s degree in music education.

But while earning a Master of Divinity at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, he spent time training at TCU and was ultimately hired as an assistant coach. Mastin enjoyed working with the athletes and realized that the Horned Frogs’ international athletes were the Christian minority on the team.

“Coaching led to the idea that a great mission field for me was public education in America,” he said. He coached and taught at high schools for 20 years before entering the collegiate coaching world.

Connie Price-Smith

Few individuals threw themselves into coaching like Connie Price-Smith.

It probably came easy to Price-Smith, who had an illustrious 15-year career as a four-time Olympian and 25-time U.S. champion in the discus and shot put combined.

Now 25 years after her coaching career began as a volunteer assistant at Ohio State, Price-Smith takes her place amongst the legends of the profession in the USTFCCCA Coaches Hall of Fame. Her coaching accolades speak for themselves: more than 20 NCAA event champions, more than 240 All-America honors and more than 275 event titles at conference championships, including more than 75 in the SEC alone.

Prior to her arrival at Ole Miss in 2015 after 14 years at her alma mater Southern Illinois, the Rebels had never touched an NCAA team podium or won an SEC team title. That all changed in 2016, 2018 and 2019: Ole Miss’s men finished fourth at the 2016 NCAA Cross Country Championships – the best finish by an SEC program since 2009; then the Rebels won back-to-back conference titles on the grass circuit in the latter years, becoming just the second non-Arkansas program to accomplish that feat since 1991.

Price-Smith’s athletes, specifically her throwers, have left their mark on the collegiate record book in a big way, too. Brittany Riley still holds the collegiate record in the weight throw at 25.56m (83-10¾) from her winning mark at the 2007 NCAA Indoor Championships, while 2016 The Bowerman finalist Raven Saunders once owned both the indoor and outdoor CRs in the shot put. Speaking of Riley, she is actually one of five athletes coached by Price-Smith in the all-time top-10 of the weight throw, including each of the top-4: Shey Taiwo (No. 2), Jalani Davis (No. 3) and Jasmine Mitchell (No. 4) sit behind Riley on the prestigious chart with Janaeh Stewart at No. 10.

The native of St. Charles, Missouri, has been a mainstay on the international stage as a coach, just as she did as an athlete. Most notably, Price-Smith was the head women’s coach for Team USA at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games and the 2011 World Championships. Price-Smith also was an assistant coach for the 2008 and 2012 Olympic track & field teams.

She has also dutifully served the USTFCCCA over the years. Most recently, Price-Smith was the NCAA Division I Track & Field President from 2017 to 2019.