Men’s Distance Coach Robert Johnson To Move To Volunteer Role In 2012-13

After nearly a decade of service on East Hill, men’s distance coach Robert Johnson has decided to step down from his full-time position at Cornell University at the end of the year and move to a volunteer role for the 2012-13 season.

Johnson arrived at Cornell in 2002 and proceeded to establish Cornell as one of the top middle-distance and distance programs in the U.S. as the mid-d and distance units served as an intergral part of the Big Red track and field’s unprecedented run of team success in track and field.

During Johnson’s first year, the Big Red won their first indoor Ivy League/Heps team title since 1978 and first outdoor title since 1985. The Big Red went on to capture an unprecedented eight straight outdoor Ivy League/Heps titles and 13 of 16 Ivy League track titles during Johnson’s first eight years at Cornell. Eight straight outright titles in an NCAA sport that is sponsored by all eight Ivy teams has only been accomplished one other time in Ivy League history.

The Big Red mid-d and distance squads really burst onto the scene during the 2004-05 school year. That fall, Bruce Hyde was named the NCAA’s Northeast Runner of the Year as he won the Ivy League and NCAA regional crowns before becoming Cornell’s first All-American in cross-country since 1993 at NCAAs, where he finished one spot behind America’s fastest marathoner in history, Ryan Hall.

In track that year, Cornell guys went 1-2 in both the mile and 1k at indoor Heps and followed that up the next weekend with an Ivy League record in the distance medley relay (DMR) as well as the nation’s leading time in the 4 x 800. Outdoors that year, Cornell won two wheels at Penn Relays, as the Big Red smashed the school record in the DMR to place third and the team also placed fifth with a new school record in the 4 x Mile. The Big Red were one of just two schools that year to be ranked in the top 10 nationally in the 4 x 800, 4 x Mile and DMR, and also that year Johnson coached the most numbers of individual mid-distance and distance track qualifiers to the NCAA East Regionals (five in six different events).

The Big Red have continued to excel since then. All told, during the last nine-plus years, 16 of Johnson’s athletes have crossed the finish line first at Heps, 32 have qualified for the NCAA regionals and 25 times they have established a new school record.

Six times the Big Red have won the Eastern (IC4A) 4 x 800 crown and three times Cornell has led the nation indoors in the event (2005, 2006 and 2012). Two of his runners, Sage Canaday and Zach Hine, both of whom were NCAA cross-country individual national qualifiers, have gone on to compete at the U.S. Olympic Trials in the marathon. Canaday actually competed at the 2008 Trials as the only collegiate runner in the field.

In 2009, Johnson was honored as the Northeast Region’s Indoor Assistant Coach of the Year, as Big Red runners set school records in the 800, 1k and 3k and won the 800, mile, 5k and DMR at Heps along with two runner-up finishes in the 1k and 3k, then broke their own all-time Ivy League indoor record in the DMR a week later. Outdoors in 2009, the Big Red set another school record in the 4 x Mile to place 4th at Penn Relays, Cornell runners went 1-2 in the Heps 10,000 for the second year in a row, and 1,500-meter runner Jimmy Wyner and steeplechaser Adrien Dannemiller qualified for NCAA nationals.

More recently, Johnson coached Dannemiller and 10,000-meter runner Nate Edelman, just a 9:32 3,200-meter performer in high school, to NCAAs in 2011, with Edelman earning All-American honors.

Head Coach Nathan Taylor says of Johnson’s departure, “Everyone associated with the Cornell running community will be very sorry to see Robert leave. Cornell has had an incredible championship run and Robert has been an integral contributor to our efforts to consistently be the top program in our region. He has given ten fantastic years of service and will be sorely missed. We are also excited for him as he moves into the next phase of his personal and professional life and wish him nothing but the very best.”

Johnson, who is engaged to be married, has agreed to stay on as a volunteer through much of the 2012-13 year to ease the transition to a new full-time coach. As a volunteer, he’ll have more time to give to his website, LetsRun.com, the world’s largest website devoted to the coverage of elite track and field, in an Olympic year.

“The last decade has been truly special. I’ll forever be thankful for Coach Taylor for giving me a chance as an inexperienced 29-year-old and for all of the guys who have trusted me to guide them over the years. I really have tried to remember each and every day that I’m in charge of helping them realize their dreams,” said Johnson.

“As a coach, you always are getting attached to the guys on the team, but next year’s seniors are truly special as a group. I’m very excited about our prospects for the fall season and I know they and I will try to do everything we can to go out on top. But the program is more important than any one individual and I just felt like it wouldn’t be right to go into the fall as the full-time guy in charge of everything. Trying to recruit and manage the website, a wedding and the team would be a bit too much to handle.”

The search for Johnson’s replacement will begin immediately.