Email Coach Grigg

Ron Grigg enters his sixth season as the director of track & field and cross country after leading the program to back-to-back Atlantic Sun Conference Indoor and Outdoor Track Championships - earning A-Sun "Coach of the Year" in each of those championship seasons.

Grigg became the director of track and field and cross country at JU in 2002 after serving as the associate head coach under former head coach Becky Motley for a year. Grigg originally came to JU in 1998 before leaving to serve as an assistant coach at Kansas State from 1999 to 2001.

Grigg coached Natasha Harvey to a fourth-place finish in the long jump to earn All-America honors at the NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships. She also qualified for the 2007 NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships. In 2006, Harvey had one of the nation's best long jumps with a 21'5.25" mark. Under Grigg's guidance, Harvey won the long jump at the U.S. Junior Track Championships to earn a spot on the U.S. team for the 2006 IAAF World Junior Track Championships in Beijing, China. She also placed seventh in the long jump (21'4.75") in the AT&T U.S. Outdoor Track Championship, the only collegian in the finals.

Grigg recruited and coached Monique Tubbs, the school's first national champion and a four-time All-America honoree; and Andrea Presley, who finished fourth in the heptathlon at the 2004 NCAA Outdoor Championships.

Besides the three All-America honorees, and the 11 NCAA Division I Championship qualifiers , Grigg has also coached 39 A-Sun Conference champions, 71 all-conference performers. School records have been set in 16 of 20 outdoor and 14 out of 17 indoor track events during Grigg's tenure as assistant and head coach.

His teams have also shown success in the classroom, receiving the United States Track Coaches Association's All-Academic Team award six consecutive years (2002-07).

While at Kansas State, Grigg served as the team's recruiting coordinator, sprints and hurdles coach and assistant meet director. In 2001, he helped lead the Wildcats to a Big 12 women's outdoor track championship. Grigg also coached 100-meter All-America selection and Big 12 indoor and outdoor champion Terence Newman, now a cornerback with the Dallas Cowboys.

Prior to coming to Jacksonville in 1998, Grigg was an assistant coach at Division III power Wheaton (Mass.) College. Under Grigg's tutelage, nine Wheaton athletes earned a total of 21 All-America honors while capturing two individual NCAA championships and two national titles in the 4x400-meter relay. In addition, the 1997 men's team finished seventh in the nation and the women's squad finished as NCAA runners-up in both indoors and outdoors in 1998.

Grigg began his coaching career at Carver High School in Baltimore, Md., in 1994 as the head cross country and track and field coach for one year before assuming an assistant coach position at Coppin State College in 1995.

Grigg earned his bachelor's degree in political science from the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth in 1993. He holds USATF Level II coaching certifications in sprints, hurdles, jumps, throws and multi-events, and instructs USATF Level I and Level II schools annually.