Dave Stevens enters his 13th year as the head women’s cross country coach at RIT in 2018-19. He recently wrapped up a successful nine-year stint as assistant track and field coach.
Last season, RIT was among the top teams in the Atlantic Region, despite several of its top runners away on Co-op. The women’s cross country team won RIT’s Team Academic Award for the fifth consecutive season in 2017-18, compiling an incredible 3.63 team grade-point average, which was among the best in all of Division III. Becca Schwan was an All-Atlantic Region selection, while three runners (Schwan, Jennifer Crossen and Alexis Scott) earned USTFCCCA All-Academic Team honors. Crossen was also a Google Cloud CoSIDA Academic All-America selection.
In 2015, the women’s cross country program advanced to the NCAA Championship for the first time in program history. RIT ascended to as high as No. 16 in the United States Track and Field Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) poll and defeated several nationally ranked teams. In 2016, Emma Jones became RIT’s first All-American in program history. Three student-athletes earned USTFCCA All-Academic honors.
Stevens helped mentor and organize "The Tiger Trail", a 1,400-mile, eight-day, non-stop relay from Auburn, Alabama to Rochester in March of 2015 that past and present members of the women’s cross country and track and field teams completed to raise money for the national Tigers for Tigers coalition.
Stevens’ 12-year collegiate coaching resume includes 29 NCAA Division III national qualifiers, five All-Americans, 18 Academic All-Americans, as well as 2008 NCAA Division III Javelin Throw Champion (Steve Burns). Stevens has also coached more than 60 All-State (NYSCTC) competitors in cross country, indoor and outdoor track and field.
Since 2008 under Stevens’ tutelage, RIT men’s and women’s field event athletes have eclipsed 11 indoor track and field and seven outdoor school records that still stand. RIT’s men’s track and field coaching staff has earned three Liberty League Coaching Staff of the Year honors since joining in 2011-12, while the women’s staff was honored in 2017.
In 2017, the women’s track and field team won its first Liberty League Indoor Championship. Jess Calzolari competed at the 2017 NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships in the pentathlon en route to earning Liberty League Indoor and Outdoor Field Athlete of the Year honors. In 2016, Hailey Burkhart competed at the 2016 NCAA Indoor Championships in the same event, while earning her third straight NYSCTC Championship in the heptathlon.
Prior to joining RIT, Stevens served as the assistant track and field coach at SUNY Brockport where he coached the 2006-2007 NCAA Division III Indoor Track and Field Men's High Jump Champion.
Stevens also serves as the Director for Recreation at the Hale-Andrews Student Life Center. He lives in Akron, N.Y. with his wife Stephanie, and daughter Brinley, and son, Ronin.
