BAKERSFIELD, Calif. - Despite retiring as the head coach at
the end of the 2012 season, longtime coach Alan Collatz has rejoined the CSU
Bakersfield track and field program and will serve as coach emeritus.
Collatz, who served as the director of track and field from
2003 through 2012, will be working on a part-time basis and overseeing throwers
for the upcoming 2013 season.
"I am happy to return part-time to help the track and field
program succeed at the Division I level," Collatz said. "Many of the throwers
return from last season and I look forward to working with them as they
continue to develop and progress toward a great 2013 season."
Thomas Judge (Sr., Bakersfield, Calif., Garces HS) leads the
returning talented throwing pack as the defending Great West Conference Champion
in the hammer throw and Gabe Holland (Jr., Anchorage, Alaska, Univ. of Alaska)
was an All-GWC discus selection in 2012.
CSUB's new head coach, Marcia Mansur-Wentworth, said that as
soon as she took the job she made it a priority to try and get Collatz to stay
involved with the program he so greatly shaped.
"I could
not be more thrilled and honored that he wants to continue to work with the
team," Mansur-Wentworth said. "He will be focusing his energy on the
throwing-event athletes, which is his area of expertise. The throwers are very
happy he has decided to return this season."
Collatz has been with the CSUB track and field program for
decades as he was a star thrower as a student-athlete for CSUB and then served
as a volunteer coach before being hired on as a full-time assistant in 1998.
All told in his career,
Collatz produced 97 All-Americans and 24 national champions, including at least
one All-American in each of his first 19 seasons in charge of the throwing
events.
During his senior season at
CSUB in 1985, Collatz placed third in the javelin at the NCAA Division II Championships
with a throw of 241-7 to help lead the Roadrunners to a fourth place national
finish. The fourth place finish at the time was CSUB's best finish at nationals
and still stands as the second-best performance in Roadrunner history. Before
transferring to Bakersfield in time for the 1982 season, was a junior college
All-American in the javelin at Allan Hancock College.
A 1992 Olympic Trials qualifier who ranked in the top 10 in the javelin by
Track and Field News in 1991 and '94, Collatz competed two seasons for the
Roadrunners and is the NCAA Division II national record holder in the pre-1985
javelin (267-1). In addition to his stint at the Olympic Trials, Collatz placed
eighth at the USA Track and Field Championships in 1994. Collatz also holds the
CCAA and CSUB school records in the javelin and was the CCAA Champion in 1985.
Before transferring to CSUB in 1982, he was
a junior college All-American in the javelin at Allan Hancock Junior College in
Santa Maria, Calif.
Collatz and wife Maria, a teacher and
volleyball coach at Bakersfield's Stockdale High School, have two daughters,
Alex and Tatum. Alex has followed in her father's footsteps as she is a star
discus thrower at USC.
~www.GoRunners.com~
