Scott Christensen
Stillwater Senior High School
Stillwater, MN
Scott has been coaching for 37 years with 35 of those years as head cross country and track coach. His boys cross country teams have finished ranked in the top 20 in the nation nine times including a 10th place finish at NXN in 2011 and as the 1997 national champions. Locally his teams have won five Class AA (large class) Minnesota state cross country titles with with eleven more top three finishes. On the track, the Ponies have won eight class AA state track & field titles with six more top three finishes. Christensen has coached 23 individual state champions on the track including seven in the mile. He's also had two individual state cross country champions. A US record of four Stillwater alums have broken 4:00 in the mile including Ben Blankenship who finished 8th in the 2016 Olympic 1500m finals. Other notable alums include Eric Colvin, a 2012 NXN qualifier and Eli Krahn, who set a U.S. freshmen record in the mile with a time of 4:08.35.
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Jonathan Dalby
Mountain Vista High School
Highlands Ranch, CO
Jonathan has been coaching for 14 years and has been the head cross country and track coach for 11 years. Mountain Vista has become a national power for boys and girls. The boys finished 3rd and NXN in 2017 and 12th in 2015. The girls were 6th at NXN in 2017 and 13th in 2016. Dalby's teams have won a combined three NXR Southwest titles and six Colorado 5A state championships (5 boys and 1 girls). His athletes have earned 73 Colorado 5A All-State cross country and track & field finishes including Jenna Fitzsimmons winning the 2017 Colorado 5A state cross country individual crown. Dalby graduated from Lee's Summit (MO) high school where he ran for legendary coach Dave Denny and was teammates with Matt Tegenkamp. After college Dalby returned home to coach with Denny at Lee's Summit West from 2004 to 2007.
Jason Druten
West Torrance High School
Torrance, CA
Jason has been coaching for 25 years, all as a head cross country coach and 15 as a head track coach. The West Torrance boys won the California D3 state cross country championship in 2017 and have finished in the top three two other times. They have won the CIF Southern Section three times and have amassed eleven league titles. Druten's boys have also won the prestigious Mount SAC sweepstakes race as well as the Nike Pre-Nats in Portland, OR. Druten has coached six 1st team all-state cross country runners and last spring they had sixteen boys under 4:45 for the 1600m with ten more under 5:00. Some top times in program history include 7:49 for 4x800, 10:14 for the DMR and 17:41 for the 4x1600. He is a Kansas native and played soccer and basketball in high school. He has been awarded as the South Bay coach of the year eight times.
Timothy Ives
Dowling Catholic High School
West Des Moines, IA
Timothy has been coaching for 11 years, all as the head boys cross country and distance coach at Dowling Catholic. In the past eight seasons, his boys have finished in the top three at the state meet seven times with four state championships. The Maroons have also won the prestigious Roy Griak meet twice and are the only boys team from Iowa to qualify for NXN. Ives' boys finished third at the NXR Heartland meet in the fall of 2017. Ives has also coached two individual cross country state champions and has had six different boys run 4:21 or better for the mile including Ryan Schweizer who finished third in the Adidas Dream Mile and had PR's of 4:05 and 1:50. Timothy is a small business owner, personal trainer and private running coach with The Body Project, Inc.. He has 15 years of experience in the fitness industry and is a Certified Strength & Conditioning Specialist with the NSCA and a certified personal trainer through the American Council on Exercise.
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Greg Coplen
Valor Christian
Highlands Ranch, CO
Since taking over the young program in 2012 Coach Coplen has coached Individual State Champions in the 800, 1600 and 3200 as well as an Individual State Champion in XC. He’s also coached two State Runner-ups as well as several All-State runners during that time. His girls team has been a state qualifier four straight years after finishing 11thout of 13 teams at the Regional Meet in Greg’s first year. His boys have been state qualifiers 3 out of the 6 years that Coach Coplen has been there. This past year his top boy broke the Colorado All-Classification record in the 3200 as well as the US Sophomore national record. This fall he was named the “Gatorade Runner of the Year” in Colorado.
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When Greg is not coaching his high schoolers you can find him hanging out with his wife of over 20 years and three almost grown children, smoking some BBQ on the back porch, or doing some kind of ultramarathon on the mountain trails of Colorado. Greg has stated publicly that he is a far more accomplished BBQ Pitmaster than Jonathan Dalby of Mountain Vista
2018 Speakers
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