Olympian Bickford Named SJC Cross Country Coach
STANDISH, ME Saint Josephs College Athletic Director Brian Curtin has named Bruce Bickford as the Monks Mens and Womens Cross Country Head Coach. Bickford fills the spot vacated by Tom Dann, who stepped down earlier this summer after 14 years as the program leader, and will be the sixth coach in team history.
STANDISH, ME – Saint Joseph’s College Athletic
Director Brian Curtin has named Bruce Bickford as the Monks’
Men’s and Women’s Cross Country Head Coach. Bickford
fills the spot vacated by Tom Dann, who stepped down earlier this
summer after 14 years as the program leader, and will be the sixth
coach in team history.
Bickford comes to St. Joe’s after a three-year stint at
Cheverus High School in Portland, Maine where he guided the
Stags’ cross country and track and field programs. Prior to
coaching at Cheverus, he served as the head coach at University of
Southern Maine for four years and Brandeis University for seven
seasons. Along with his role as the cross country coach, Bickford
will also work with the SJC track and field club teams.
Bickford is widely regarded as one of the most prolific runners to
hail from the State of Maine, if not New England. After graduating
from Lawrence High School, he headed to Northeastern University
where he earned four NCAA Division I All-America honors and was
named as the Huskies’ Trackman of the Year on two
occasions.
Following a record-filled career at Northeastern, (Bickford still
owns the Huskies’ two-mile (8:40.56) and 3,000 meter
steeplechase (8:33.6) records) he began a career as a national and
international long-distance runner. He qualified for the
Olympic trials for the 1980 Moscow games, which was boycotted by
the United States, in three events (3000M steeplechase, 5,000M and
10,000M) and served as an alternate on the 1984 Olympic team.
In 1985, after winning a 10K race in Stockholm, Sweden - with a
27:37.7 time, the fastest 10K effort that year in the world -
Bickford was ranked first internationally in the 10,000 by Track
and Field News. He also was the TAC (The Athletic Congress, later
renamed as USATF) 10,000 meter Champion in 1985 and the 1987 PanAm
Games Champion in the 10,000. Bickford won the Olympic Trials in
Indianapolis a year later to gain a place on the 1988 USA Olympic
Team and was the only American to qualify for the finals in the
10,000 meter event in the Seoul Games.
After an accolade-filled running career, Bickford turned to
coaching. He served as an assistant coach at Villanova for one year
and, as the Head Administrator of Nike Boston for two years
(1991-1993), he guided men’s and women’s teams that
finished second and fifth, respectively, at the TAC/USA Cross
Country Championships. In 1992, he was appointed by the USA Track
and Field Men’s Distance Committee to coach and manage the
United State Ekiden Team in Chiba, Japan.
Bickford, a twelve-time US National Track and Field member and
four-time World Cross Country Team member, has been inducted into
the Maine Running (1989), Northeastern University (1991) and Maine
Sports (1993) Halls of Fame.
“We are excited to have Coach Bickford join our staff,”
adds Curtin. “He brings a solid background in all levels of
running and coaching. Saint Joseph’s College has been
fortunate to have very devoted cross country coaches over the years
and we are confident that Coach Bickford will be able to build off
of all that hard work to advance our cross country
program.”
*Courtesy St. Joe's Maine Athletic Communications
