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UC Davis Magazine

Volume 28 · Number 1 · Fall 2010

Sports

Jon Vochatzer

Head mens’ track and field coach (1980–85, 1988–2010)

Assistant football coach (1979–85)

By the numbers

  • 89 All-America awards as head coach
  • 7 Northern California Athletic Conference
  • Coach of the Year awards
  • 6 West Region Division II Outdoor
  • Coach of the Year
  • 6 West Region Division II Indoor
  • Coach of the Year
  • 4 California Collegiate Athletic Association
  • Coach of the Year awards

Career Achievements

  • Assistant coach, U.S. Olympic Festival (1995)
  • Olympic Development Committee,
  • U.S. Olympic Team (1996)
  • Assistant coach, World University Games (1997)
  • Assistant coach, World Outdoor Championships (1999)
  • Competition manager, U.S. Olympic Trials (2000)
  • Organizing Committee, U.S. Olympic Trials (2004, 2008)

Finish Line: Jon Vochatzer

Jon Vochatzer

Jon’s Memories

What I’ll miss

“I’ll miss the excitement of a season. Watching our kids go from Oct. 1, the first day of practice for the last umpteen years, to the culmination of the season at conference. Watching them grow and develop throughout the year. I’ll miss that the most.”

Being a teacher and a coach

“Every professor on campus has their office where they do their preparation, then they go and teach their classes. When I walk from my office to the track, I’m walking into my classroom. The students prepare by warming up, then I say, ‘Let’s get to work. This is my classroom, you are the students, I am your teacher, and we’re here to get something done.’”

On the husband/wife tandem

“Sometimes an athlete says, ‘I need to talk to your wife.’ And I tell them, ‘No, no. You need to talk to the women’s coach. Out here, she’s the coach.’ We have a unique relationship where I treat her as the professional coach that she is. She treats me as a professional coach, which I am. We have an ability to be 100 percent professional.”

Things I’ll remember

“Of all the meets we competed in and of all the championships we won, the one with the biggest impact in my mind was the 1984 conference meet. It was the first time we had won a championship in 37 years. We called ourselves the Blue Wave. In 1983, we had lost to Chico State by about three points, and I said the next year will be our year. We put it all together in 1984, and by the time we hit that conference meet at San Francisco State, each person knew what they had to do in order to win the championship.”

On international experience

“Working with an elite athlete is a whole different world. Their demands are much higher than the demands of the (collegiate) athletes. Charles Austin was the 1996 Olympic champion and a four-time world champion in the high jump. I shared two teams with him, and to have that relationship was phenomenal. It made me a better coach because it made me realize how good an athlete can be and how far I can push an athlete to get to that next level.”

Facing challenges

“Back in the 1990s, [the campus was] getting ready to cut some programs [due to budget]. That was a huge challenge. Another was going through the transition from Division II to Division I, and meeting all the demands that the transition had. Over the years [in Div. II], we always got athletes we felt strongly could — by the time they were juniors and seniors — be the athlete that we wanted. Today, we need that athlete to be at that level today. We don’t have that time. We don’t have two years to have them develop.”

Dee Vochatzer

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