Men's Track & Field
Andrew, Gary
Gary Andrew
- Title:
- Head Coach
- Email:
- gaandrew@davidson.edu
- Phone:
- 2367
28th Season
Michigan '74
Now in his 28th season as the head coach of the men's cross country and track & field teams, three-time coach of the year Gary Andrew has the Wildcats performing better than ever. He continually pushes his student-athletes to achieve success in both the athletic and academic arenas.
The second-longest tenured coach in the Davidson men’s cross country and track & field program’s history, Andrew is also the second-longest serving coach presently at Davidson. He is also one of just seven coaches to have received the Southern Conference’s Coach of the Year award twice since the league began issuing it in 1978.
Andrew’s cross country teams have placed in the top five at the SoCon Championships in each of the last five years and eight times in the past nine years, including program-best runner-up finishes in 2009 and 2011. The 2009 cross country team also finished a program-best 12th at the NCAA Southeast Region Championship. Andrew has guided individuals to 11 all-conference honors since 1999, five SoCon all-freshman honors since the award’s inception in 2008, and an NCAA Southeast All-Region honor in 2011. Davidson runners have also earned seven conference runner of the week accolades since 2002 and five conference runner of the month honors since 2003.
The success has continued through the winter and spring on the track. The Wildcats had not seen the podium as a team in the outdoor SoCon Championships, or even cracked the top five since 1972, until Andrew guided the ‘Cats to back-to-back third-place finishes in 2006 and 2007, earning Southern Conference Outdoor Coach of the Year honors both times. Davidson has not finished outside the top five since. The squad has seen a similar renaissance indoors, cracking the top five in 2006 for the first time since a fourth-place finish in 1971, and finishing a program-best third in 2007.
A total of 19 individual SoCon Champions have been crowned, and Douglas Noreen ’07 was recognized as the Most Outstanding Track Performer at the 2007 outdoor SoCon Championships. Andrew has also seen ‘Cats step on the podium 77 times with all-conference honors, and 29 rookies have claimed Freshman All-SoCon honors since the award’s creation in 2009. Wildcats have also claimed SoCon athlete of the week recognition 15 times and one athlete of the month honor after both awards started being issued in the early 2000’s.
Of the 62 indoor and outdoor records kept for Davidson track, 41 have been set during Andrew’s tenure, including 17 since 2012. Most recently, distance runners Ryan Hopkins ‘12 and Demetrios Pagonis ’13, and middle-distance runner Andrew Lantz ’14 have rewritten the Davidson record books.
Hopkins became the cross country program’s first NCAA all-region runner in 2011 and the first Wildcat to qualify for the NCAA Outdoor Region Track Championships strictly on time in 2012. He (2009-11) is one of three, three-time All-SoCon cross country runners that Andrew has guided (the first was 2005 SoCon Freshman of the Year Lance Harden [2006-09], and the most recent was Pagonis, from 2009-10 and 2012). Hopkins owns the top six 8K performances and the top 10K performance in school history, as well as the indoor 5,000-meter run record and a host of top-10 performances. He also claimed the 2012 outdoor title in the 5,000 meters.
Hopkins’ name was attached to more track records until Pagonis put his mark on the program as a senior in 2013. Pagonis claimed the school indoor flat-track 5,000m record and the outdoor 5,000m and 10,000m records as a senior, and then became the first Wildcat to complete the “distance double” at the SoCon Championships by claiming titles in both the 5K and 10K races. Lantz also swept the middle-distance events at the meet to give Davidson four individual championships for the first time since 2007. Pagonis (10,000m) and Lantz (800m) both qualified on time for the 2013 NCAA Regionals, and Lantz became the first Wildcat to advance a round at the meet, reaching the quarterfinals in school-record time.
Lantz established himself as arguably the top middle-distance runner in program history early in his career, becoming the first Davidson runner to claim the indoor SoCon 800m title in 2011 as a freshman, and then he successfully defended his title and added the outdoor 800m title as a sophomore. Lantz’s 2013 middle-distance sweep of the 800m and 1500m was Davidson’s first since 2007, when previous 800m school-record holder Noreen did so. Lantz, a five-time conference champion, presently owns the school indoor and outdoor middle-distance records and nine of the top-10 performances in the outdoor 800m.
Hopkins, Pagonis and Lantz are not the only Davidson distance runners to see success under Andrew in recent years. Of the top six performers in Davidson history in the indoor 5,000-meter run, four were in 2012. Dan Gibson ‘02, the first Wildcat to complete the event in under 15 minutes in 2002, owns the oldest mark remaining on the performers list. In fact, a pair of Tom Divinnie ’10’s performances (2010, including a former record) and Charlie Schmitt ‘11’s past 2011 record are the only marks remaining on the Top 10 performances list prior to 2012. The outdoor list is similar, with the exception of one time from 1978.
Andrew’s specialty may be distance running, but records have fallen across the entire track and field program during his tenure. In the sprints, the 60m, indoor 200m, 300m and both the indoor and outdoor 400m school records have fallen within the last 10 years. New standards have been set in recent years in nearly all of the throwing events as the shot put and 35-pound weight (Will Funderberg ‘09), discus (Jim Walter ‘07), and javelin (Beaux Jones ‘08) records were all broken in 2007 and 2008.
In the jumps, Stewart Dalton ’14 broke the indoor long jump record in 2013, while Kwame Som-Pimpong ‘09 did the same in the indoor triple jump in 2008. Bryce Jones ‘11 broke the pole vault record in 2010 and Michael Lorentsen ’14 raised the bar indoors in 2013.
The success on the trails and track has been matched in the classroom. Under Andrew's watch, the Wildcat men's cross country team has earned all-academic honors from the U.S. Cross Country Coaches Association, including "with distinction" honors in 2004, for the past 15 seasons, and his track and field teams have been ranked among the top squads in the nation academically for several seasons. Gibson was named to the 2002 CoSIDA Academic All-American team and Pagonis earned the same distinction in 2013. Additionally, Hopkins was named to the USTFCCCA Men’s Cross Country All-Academic team in 2011.
When Andrew arrived at Davidson, he was the lone coach for the men’s and women’s cross country and track & field teams, and he guided the women’s teams through 1992. He was named the 1991 Big South Women’s Cross Country Co-Coach of the Year after guiding Kathy Beach ’92 to the conference cross country individual title that year. Beach’s brilliant career earned her a place in the Davidson Athletics Hall of Fame and on the Big South’s 1990’s Women’s Cross Country All-Decade team.
A 1974 graduate of the University of Michigan, Andrew received a master's degree in biomechanics from Penn State in 1986. He also served as an assistant coach for the Nittany Lions' men's cross country team. As part of his research at Penn State, Andrew worked with several national- and international-caliber distance runners. He was also involved with a research project for the U.S. Olympic Committee, which analyzed elite female distance runners. He co-authored a paper entitled "An Approach to Biomechanical Profiling of Elite Distance Runners," which was published in the International Journal of Sport Biomechanics. Also, research from his master's thesis was cited in "The Biomechanics of Distance Running."
Andrew launched his coaching career at Chapel Hill High School in 1978. During his tenure there, his teams won six boys' and girls' North Carolina cross country titles through 1983.
Michigan '74
Now in his 28th season as the head coach of the men's cross country and track & field teams, three-time coach of the year Gary Andrew has the Wildcats performing better than ever. He continually pushes his student-athletes to achieve success in both the athletic and academic arenas.
The second-longest tenured coach in the Davidson men’s cross country and track & field program’s history, Andrew is also the second-longest serving coach presently at Davidson. He is also one of just seven coaches to have received the Southern Conference’s Coach of the Year award twice since the league began issuing it in 1978.
Andrew’s cross country teams have placed in the top five at the SoCon Championships in each of the last five years and eight times in the past nine years, including program-best runner-up finishes in 2009 and 2011. The 2009 cross country team also finished a program-best 12th at the NCAA Southeast Region Championship. Andrew has guided individuals to 11 all-conference honors since 1999, five SoCon all-freshman honors since the award’s inception in 2008, and an NCAA Southeast All-Region honor in 2011. Davidson runners have also earned seven conference runner of the week accolades since 2002 and five conference runner of the month honors since 2003.
The success has continued through the winter and spring on the track. The Wildcats had not seen the podium as a team in the outdoor SoCon Championships, or even cracked the top five since 1972, until Andrew guided the ‘Cats to back-to-back third-place finishes in 2006 and 2007, earning Southern Conference Outdoor Coach of the Year honors both times. Davidson has not finished outside the top five since. The squad has seen a similar renaissance indoors, cracking the top five in 2006 for the first time since a fourth-place finish in 1971, and finishing a program-best third in 2007.
A total of 19 individual SoCon Champions have been crowned, and Douglas Noreen ’07 was recognized as the Most Outstanding Track Performer at the 2007 outdoor SoCon Championships. Andrew has also seen ‘Cats step on the podium 77 times with all-conference honors, and 29 rookies have claimed Freshman All-SoCon honors since the award’s creation in 2009. Wildcats have also claimed SoCon athlete of the week recognition 15 times and one athlete of the month honor after both awards started being issued in the early 2000’s.
Of the 62 indoor and outdoor records kept for Davidson track, 41 have been set during Andrew’s tenure, including 17 since 2012. Most recently, distance runners Ryan Hopkins ‘12 and Demetrios Pagonis ’13, and middle-distance runner Andrew Lantz ’14 have rewritten the Davidson record books.
Hopkins became the cross country program’s first NCAA all-region runner in 2011 and the first Wildcat to qualify for the NCAA Outdoor Region Track Championships strictly on time in 2012. He (2009-11) is one of three, three-time All-SoCon cross country runners that Andrew has guided (the first was 2005 SoCon Freshman of the Year Lance Harden [2006-09], and the most recent was Pagonis, from 2009-10 and 2012). Hopkins owns the top six 8K performances and the top 10K performance in school history, as well as the indoor 5,000-meter run record and a host of top-10 performances. He also claimed the 2012 outdoor title in the 5,000 meters.
Hopkins’ name was attached to more track records until Pagonis put his mark on the program as a senior in 2013. Pagonis claimed the school indoor flat-track 5,000m record and the outdoor 5,000m and 10,000m records as a senior, and then became the first Wildcat to complete the “distance double” at the SoCon Championships by claiming titles in both the 5K and 10K races. Lantz also swept the middle-distance events at the meet to give Davidson four individual championships for the first time since 2007. Pagonis (10,000m) and Lantz (800m) both qualified on time for the 2013 NCAA Regionals, and Lantz became the first Wildcat to advance a round at the meet, reaching the quarterfinals in school-record time.
Lantz established himself as arguably the top middle-distance runner in program history early in his career, becoming the first Davidson runner to claim the indoor SoCon 800m title in 2011 as a freshman, and then he successfully defended his title and added the outdoor 800m title as a sophomore. Lantz’s 2013 middle-distance sweep of the 800m and 1500m was Davidson’s first since 2007, when previous 800m school-record holder Noreen did so. Lantz, a five-time conference champion, presently owns the school indoor and outdoor middle-distance records and nine of the top-10 performances in the outdoor 800m.
Hopkins, Pagonis and Lantz are not the only Davidson distance runners to see success under Andrew in recent years. Of the top six performers in Davidson history in the indoor 5,000-meter run, four were in 2012. Dan Gibson ‘02, the first Wildcat to complete the event in under 15 minutes in 2002, owns the oldest mark remaining on the performers list. In fact, a pair of Tom Divinnie ’10’s performances (2010, including a former record) and Charlie Schmitt ‘11’s past 2011 record are the only marks remaining on the Top 10 performances list prior to 2012. The outdoor list is similar, with the exception of one time from 1978.
Andrew’s specialty may be distance running, but records have fallen across the entire track and field program during his tenure. In the sprints, the 60m, indoor 200m, 300m and both the indoor and outdoor 400m school records have fallen within the last 10 years. New standards have been set in recent years in nearly all of the throwing events as the shot put and 35-pound weight (Will Funderberg ‘09), discus (Jim Walter ‘07), and javelin (Beaux Jones ‘08) records were all broken in 2007 and 2008.
In the jumps, Stewart Dalton ’14 broke the indoor long jump record in 2013, while Kwame Som-Pimpong ‘09 did the same in the indoor triple jump in 2008. Bryce Jones ‘11 broke the pole vault record in 2010 and Michael Lorentsen ’14 raised the bar indoors in 2013.
The success on the trails and track has been matched in the classroom. Under Andrew's watch, the Wildcat men's cross country team has earned all-academic honors from the U.S. Cross Country Coaches Association, including "with distinction" honors in 2004, for the past 15 seasons, and his track and field teams have been ranked among the top squads in the nation academically for several seasons. Gibson was named to the 2002 CoSIDA Academic All-American team and Pagonis earned the same distinction in 2013. Additionally, Hopkins was named to the USTFCCCA Men’s Cross Country All-Academic team in 2011.
When Andrew arrived at Davidson, he was the lone coach for the men’s and women’s cross country and track & field teams, and he guided the women’s teams through 1992. He was named the 1991 Big South Women’s Cross Country Co-Coach of the Year after guiding Kathy Beach ’92 to the conference cross country individual title that year. Beach’s brilliant career earned her a place in the Davidson Athletics Hall of Fame and on the Big South’s 1990’s Women’s Cross Country All-Decade team.
A 1974 graduate of the University of Michigan, Andrew received a master's degree in biomechanics from Penn State in 1986. He also served as an assistant coach for the Nittany Lions' men's cross country team. As part of his research at Penn State, Andrew worked with several national- and international-caliber distance runners. He was also involved with a research project for the U.S. Olympic Committee, which analyzed elite female distance runners. He co-authored a paper entitled "An Approach to Biomechanical Profiling of Elite Distance Runners," which was published in the International Journal of Sport Biomechanics. Also, research from his master's thesis was cited in "The Biomechanics of Distance Running."
Andrew launched his coaching career at Chapel Hill High School in 1978. During his tenure there, his teams won six boys' and girls' North Carolina cross country titles through 1983.
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