women's track Coaches

Entering his 24th season of overseeing the St. Lawrence University Cross-Country and Track and Field programs, Mike Howard will again serve as the head coach of the women's cross country team in 2012.

Howard, the Director of the Saints Cross-Country and Track & Field Programs, also oversees the Men's and Women's Track & Field program and serves the university as an Associate Athletic Director in charge of all scheduling and NCAA compliance duties within the department.

He has guided his team to three consecutive Atlantic Regional titles (2009, 2010, 2011), earning automatic bids to the NCAA Championship each year.  The Saints finished second in the nation in 2009, the highest place in program history.  Howard has coached some of the top cross country and track athletes in the university's history, including three All-Americans in the past three years (Wendy Pavlus, Johannah Ludington and Jenna Hulton) and a two-time national champion (Pavlus). 

Howard, a 1987 St. Lawrence graduate, who stepped out of the role as the Head Cross-Country coach after the fall of 2000, has won numerous Coach of the Year Awards including six United States Track & Field and Cross-Country Coaches Association NCAA Division III Cross Country Regional Coach of the Year honors, most recently in 2011. He has won 19 conference "Coach of the Year" honors during his tenure with the Cross-Country and Track & Field programs as well as earning the same honor in New York State for both sports several times.

Kate Curran, a former Penn State cross country and track and field athlete, joined the Saint staff as head women's track and field coach and assistant cross country coach in the fall of 2008 and earned Liberty League Indoor Coach of the Year honors in her first season as a collegiate head coach. She was named Liberty League indoor Coach of the Year for the 2012 season. Her teams have had three top ten finishes in the Deb Vercauteren Program of the Year Award.

She is  president of the New York State Collegiate Track Conference and is the Atlantic Regional representative to the NCAA Cross Country and Track and Field Committee.

Curran came to St. Lawrence from Susquehanna University where she served as an assistant coach. She holds a USATF Level 1 Coaching certification and was Gatorade Sport Camp Hydration Manager at the Penn State summer sports camps. She coached distance and mid-distance runners along with pole vaulters at Susquehanna and had two NCAA qualifiers in the vault in the 2006-07 season.

As a Penn State undergraduate, she was a member of the Nittany Lion cross country and track and field teams and was varsity cross country captain as a senior. She was a member of the 2004 Big Ten Champion women's track and field team and earned Penn State and Big Ten Scholar-Athlete awards and was the recipient of the Big Ten Sportsmanship Award in 2005.

Co-captain of the 1993 men's cross country team and a four-year runner for the Saints in cross country and indoor and outdoor track, John Newman became the head coach of the men's cross country program in 2001.  He earned his Bachelor of Science degree in sports studies in the spring of 1994 and his Master's Degree in education in 2001. 

Newman has played a major role in the success of the men's cross country program which includes active streaks of 18 straight conference titles and five straight New York State Collegiate Track Conference championships. He guided St. Lawrence to the 2011 NCAA Regional Championship, the third in program history ('97 and '00) as well as the program's best finish at the NCAA Championship race in 2010, finishing third overall. Newman, a native of Canton, NY, has coached 10 All-Americans and 12 individual conference champions in cross country and was the Liberty League Cross Country Coach of the Year seven times (04, 05, 07, 08, 09, 10, 11). 

In track and field, his teams have won three NYSCTC indoor championships, back-to-back ECAC Indoor Championships and two Liberty League indoor championships during his tenure. The Saint men's team has had three All Americas including a national champion during his tenure.

Newman is a member of USA Track and Field and the United States Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA).  He was an honorary inductee into Omicron Delta Kappa (ODK) in the spring of 2011.

Beresford "Ozzie" Brown, the 2008 NCAA decathlon and indoor long jump champion has joined the Saint track and field staff as an assistant coach.

Brown, a graduate of Moravian College, was also a two-time All America in the 55 hurdles and the 2008 USTCCCA Mideast Region male Indoor and Outdoor Track Athlete of the Year and Mideast Region Indoor Field Athlete of the Year. He was the Mideast Region Male Track and Male Field Athlete of the Year in 2007.

He joins the Saint staff after coaching at Gwynedd Mercy College and at Moravian where he coached the sprinters, jumpers and hurdlers.

Kelly Curtis, the 2011 USTFCCA Regional Field Athlete of the Year and an All America multi-sport track and field performer at Springfield College, has joined the St. Lawrence University track and field program as an assistant coach for both the men's and women's programs.

Curtis, a Dean's List student who graduated with a degree in sport management at Springfield began her collegiate career at Tulane prior to transferring to Springfield in 2010. At Springfield, she was All America in both the heptathlon and pentathlon and was the 2011 Penn Relays champion in the heptathlon. She was the 2011 and 2012 NEWMAC Field Athlete of the Year in addition to earning USTFCCA Academic honors as a senior.

Captain of the track and field team, she represented Springfield at the conference SAAC meetings and was a member of the National Society of Collegiate Scholars.

A native of Princeton, NJ and captain of the basketball and track teams in high school, she holds a USTFCCCA Level 1 certification as a track and field coach.

Deshaya Williams, a three-time All America thrower and the 2003 NCAA Division I women's discus champion while a student at Penn State, has joined the St. Lawrence University athletic staff as assistant track and field coach for men and women and assistant coordinator of student athlete development.

Williams, who spent last season as a track and field assistant at SUNY Fredonia, will coach the throws for the Saint men and women. A native of Saratoga Springs, she earned her bachelor's and master's degrees at Penn State in 2002 and 2004 and earned a second master's degree from the Erskine Theological Seminary in 2009. She served as a graduate assistant for the Penn State women's program and was a volunteer assistant at Clemson University from 2004-2006.

As an athlete, she participated in the US Olympic Trials in 2000 and 2004. She was a three-time Big Ten Champion, a member of the USA National Team and both USA Junior National Champion and Junior Pan American Champion in 1999. She was the first women's national champion in Penn State history when she won the discus title in 2003.