Men of Oregon Rack up Honors
NEW ORLEANS - Eric Jenkins was named the USTFCCCA Division I Men’s Indoor Track Athlete of the Year while Robert Johnson and Andy Powell were awarded the Men’s Head Coach and Assistant Coach of the Year awards.
Jenkins is coming off a sensational performance at the NCAA Indoor Championships where he won both the 3,000 and 5,000, earning the Ducks 20 of the team’s 74 total points on its way to a second-straight national championship. During the regular season, he ran the eighth-fastest 3,000 meters in collegiate history in 7:44.91 to win the Millrose Games. He also ran the collegiate leader at 5,000 meters in a 13:31.76 to win the Rod McCravy Memorial in January.
Johnson took over as the Oregon head men’s and women’s track & field and cross country coach in summer 2012; in the three academic years since then, he’s averaged more than two National Coach of the Year awards per year. This is his seventh since the 2012 indoor season, and his second straight men’s indoor award.
Seventy of the seventy-four points that clinched the national title for Oregon’s men were coached by Associate Head Coach Andy Powell. Under his direction, Eric Jenkins won the 3,000 and 5,000, and Edward Cheserek won the mile and ran the 1,600 meter leg of the winning distance medley.
The forty points those two men (plus the relay) scored would have been third in the NCAA; their distance teammates Johnny Gregorek, Daniel Winn, Will Geoghegan, and Parker Stinson added thirty more in the mile, 3k, and 5k to put the Ducks over the top. They’re the first team to ever win four distance events in a single NCAA meet.
The Ducks will begin the outdoor season this weekend at the Trojan Invitational, March 20-21.
