Hired during the summer of 1995, Mitchell inherited a program mired in the Mid-American Conference basement. The men had scored 14.5 points that spring at the championship meet, 22 points behind ninth-place Ball State. The Zips women had tallied 18 points to trail ninth-place Toledo by 30.
One year later, the Akron men doubled their point total and scored 30 points at the ‘96 championship. And then last year, the Zips nearly doubled all of their MAC championship point totals from 1996 to ‘97. The Zips men went from 20 points indoors to 42, and from 30 points outdoors to 55. The Zips women also improved from 8 points indoors to 26.
The trend line is pointed in the right direction, and the future projections for The University of Akron’s track & field program are good. All told, UA student-athletes set 33 school marks indoors and outdoors in 1996-97, after establishing 19 Akron records one year earlier. In 1996, high jumper Brande Lamb become the first UA track athlete to win a MAC title. Last spring, Barron Pringle in the 110-meter high hurdles and Christi Smith in the long jump garnered individual MAC championships.
Mitchell expects continued improvement from his men’s squad this season and anticipates 1998 being a breakthrough year for the Zips women.
“Our recruiting effort is starting to pay off,” says Mitchell. “We needed to improve our depth across the board. We now have so many more athletes capable of scoring at the MAC Championships.”
For 10 years, from the fall of 1985 until his appointment at Akron in 1995, Mitchell gained invaulable experience as an assistant coach at Texas (six years) and North Carolina (four years).
As field events coordinator under Dennis Craddock at UNC, Mitchell helped direct the efforts of 20 Atlantic Coast Conference champions and 13 All-America performances. In his first season in Chapel Hill, the Tar Heel men won their first ACC track & field title (1992) in more than 30 years, and followed that with three straight league titles over 1994 and ‘95. North Carolina won ACC outdoor crowns each year sandwiched around an indoor championship in 1995. Craddock was named 1995 NCAA Men’s Indoor Coach of the Year.
In the meantime, UNC’s women followed a 1992 ACC outdoor team championship with indoor-outdoor conference sweeps for the next three seasons (1993-95).
His prize pupils included: Lynda Lipson, who finished runnerup in the javelin at the 1992 NCAA Championships; Ingrid Hantho, who placed fourth in discus at the ‘94 NCAA; and pole vaulter Kevin Brown, the first collegiate athlete in the state of North Carolina to clear more than 18 feet. He also gained All-America notice in 1994.
Mitchell served as assistant field events coach under Stan Huntsman at Texas from 1985-91. He tutored four All-America pole vaulters and aided hurdlers, decathletes and high jumpers. The Longhorns captured Southwest Conference titles in 1986 and ’87, and finished in the NCAA outdoor top five from 1986-89 and again in 1991. Huntsman was tabbed 1988 U.S. Track & Field Olympic Team head coach.
Among Mitchell’s other track and field-related responsibilities is his national-level involvement with USA Track & Field and the U.S. Track and Field Coaches Association. He an active member of the USATF pole vault development committee and is currently the assistant national pole vault chairman. The Zips’ coach is also the director and founder of the USTCA dual meet rankings.
Mitchell is a native of Rialto, Calif., and a 1985 graduate of Abilene Christian University, where he was a pole vaulter on the Wildcats’ ‘85 NCAA Division II Championship team, after transferring to ACU from the University of Utah. While at Utah, Mitchell was twice Western Athletic Conference runner-up in the pole vault.
Mitchell, 38, and his wife, Cindy, reside in Green with their children Matt, 12, and Chad, 10.
Since that time, Akron sprinters and hurdlers under his guidance have rewritten the UA record book, with more than 40 school records falling in 25 different events. Last year was a milestone campaign for the Zips. Senior sprinter Paul Donatelli became the first UA athlete to provisionally qualify for the NCAA Division I Indoor Championships. Donatelli also was the first Zip to compete at the USATF Indoor National Meet. Junior hurdler Barron Pringle became the first Akron man to win a Mid-American Conference track & field individual title when he claimed the 110-meter high hurdles crown last May at Kent. Freshman LaTrese Taylor qualified for the USATF Junior National Championships in the 200 meters.
Wright’s duties for the Akron track and field program include his specialized work with both the men’s and women’s hurdlers, administrative duties, and overseeing the Zips’ recruiting effort. He also teaches classes in the University’s department of physical and health education.
Wright is a Level I USATF certified coach and has served as a clinician at various camps around the country. He also has worked with professional athletes on speed development. Two of his charges are currently on NFL rosters: Victor Green, starting safety for the New York Jets and Chris Gedney, a tight end with the Arizona Cardinals.
A former Zips track standout, Wright was honored as the team MVP in 1988, after capturing the All-Ohio Championship in the 110 high hurdles. He concluded his career with personal bests of 7.45 in the 55-meter hurdles and 14.32 in the 110 high hurdles. Wright also was a member of the Zips’ 1985 football team which qualified for the NCAA Division I-AA playoffs.
He received his degree in special education from The University of Akron in 1990, and for three years taught developmentally handicapped students in the Akron Public School system.
A graduate of Bowling Green (Ohio) High School, Wright’s bloodlines to the Mid-American Conference run deep. His father, Tom, has been a track assistant at Bowling Green State University for 25 years. His brother, Todd, played football at Ball State University.
Wright is married to the former Vanessa McCall. They reside in Barberton with their two sons, Brian Justin (7) and Paul Daniel (2).
Jones came to the Zips from the University of Illinois, where he served as an assistant coach for women’s track and field and cross country for two years. While at Illinois, the Illini women captured three consecutive Big Ten team championships, sweeping the 1995 season and winning the 1996 indoor championships before finishing second at the 1996 Big Ten Outdoor Championships. Two years ago, Illinois finished fourth in the team competition for the second straight outdoor season at the NCAA Championships in Eugene, Ore. In 1994, the Illinois women’s cross country team placed third at the NCAA District IV Cross Country Championships and finished the season 21st in the cross country coaches’ rankings.
Jones also coached at Cornell University from 1991-92, working with both men and women on the track and field and cross country teams. In 1991 and 1992, the Big Red women finished fourth at the NCAA Cross Country Championships, while the men’s team placed 19th in 1992.
A 1982 graduate of Duke University with a degree in geology, Jones has done post-graduate work at Indiana University and in 1989 earned a Ph.D. in oceanography from the University of California-San Diego. At Cornell, Jones was a post-doctoral research associate in the department of mechanical and aerospace engineering, and at Illinois he was a visiting assistant professor of theoretical and applied mechanics. Jones, 36, is single and lives in Akron.