Chris, Dave, and Travis breakdown an exciting NCAA D1 Indoor Track & Field Championships.

Please enjoy the show!

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We are excited to have another one of the country's top coaching minds on the pod this week with Chris Puppione of Sonoma Academy, where is the Head Cross Country and Track & Field coach, in Santa Rosa, CA

Coach Pup, as he is affectionately known, has had a decorated coaching career spanning over 30 years now across the California Cross Country and Track & Field scene with positions at UC Davis, Amador Valley High School, Miramonte High School, Cardinal Newman, and Healdsburg High School. Over the course of his coaching career, he has helped guide athletes to league, section, and state-level success and has been part of the development of multiple sub-4:00 milers and elite athletes, including Santa Rosa Olympian Kim Conley and UK World Championships Team member Tim Bayley.

Chris stepped away from coaching for nearly a decade, but remained connected to the sport and continued to help and advise coaching colleagues during that time. He also founded the NorCal Distance Coaches Roundtable, a collaborative clinic that brings together high school coaches to share ideas, training philosophies, and practical strategies for building stronger programs. Much like the World Famous Just Athletics Summit in Dunes City, OR.

Coach Pup hold a master's degree in Exercise Science and is known for being a deep thinker that has some incredible perspectives on our sport. This is a great conversation with someone we highly respect.

Please enjoy the show!

Please subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Be sure to follow us on Facebook and Instagram. And if you’re enjoying the pod, we’d love for you to rate the show! If you have any questions or suggestions, you can send those to justathleticspodcast@gmail.com

We were convinced we’d already had the great Jeff Hess on the pod… turns out we hadn’t, which made this conversation even more exciting. We’re thrilled to welcome Coach Jeff Hess of South Eugene High School to the show.

As an athlete, Jeff was a multiple-time state champion at South Eugene and a true phenom, setting the national high school record in the boys’ 3000m steeplechase with an 8:50 mark as a senior—a record that stood for decades. He went on to become an All-American at the University of Arizona.

Jeff began his teaching and coaching career at Glendale High School in Southern Oregon, where he coached multiple state champions, including a young athlete named Tom Pappas, who would later become an NCAA champion and Olympic decathlete. In 1999, Jeff returned to his alma mater at South Eugene, where he coached numerous individual state champions and state championship teams.

After several years away, Jeff returned to coaching at South Eugene this fall and made an immediate impact, already producing a state champion in cross country and helping reestablish the teams as true powerhouses.

We wish we’d had more time with one of the best coaches in the country—but we’ll definitely have him back. Enjoy the show!

Please subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Be sure to follow us on Twitter @just_athletics, and like us on Facebook and Instagram. And if you’re enjoying the pod, we’d love for you to rate the show!