June 12, 2007
TEMPE, Ariz. - Following an outdoor season that saw his team win three championships, including the 2007 NCAA Outdoor Track & Field Championships last week, eleventh-year Head Coach Greg Kraft has been named the 2007 USTFCCCA Women's National Coach of the Year, the Association announced Tuesday. Kraft earns his second national coaching honor of the year from the USTFCCCA after being named to the same honor indoors in March.
Kraft's women won their first NCAA outdoor title, June 6-9, in Sacramento, Calif., as the Sun Devils scored 60 points and had three women crowned as individual champions, including April Kubishta (pole vault), Jacquelyn Johnson (heptathlon) and Jessica Pressley (shot put). The title, which came 30 years after the Sun Devil men won the 1977 title under Baldy Castillo, was the second national crown of the year after women also earned the 2007 NCAA Indoor Track & Field Championship in Fayetteville, Ark.
During the 2007 season, Kraft led the women to victories at every scored meet, including both national titles, the 2007 MPSF Indoor Championship, the 2007 Pac-10 Conference Championship and the 2007 NCAA West Region Championships. The victories at the MPSF and West Region meets marked the first in the history of the ASU program while the Pac-10 title was the second in a row (as well as overall) for the women's program. He also guided the women to victories over intrastate rivals Arizona and Northern Arizona in the Double Dual.
For the year, 10 different women combined to collect 18 total All-America honors, including all 10 women earning at least one honor at the outdoor meet. In all, Sarah Stevens and Latosha Wallace each earned two honors at the outdoor meet with Stevens earning the accolades by finishing third in the shot put and fourth in the hammer while Wallace was fourth in the 400m hurdles and eighth in the 4x400m relay.