Dan Pfaff
American track and field coach
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Dan Pfaff is a track and field coach, who has coached national, world, and Olympic championship athletes.[citation needed]
| Personal information | |
|---|---|
| Full name | Dan Pfaff |
Nickname | Dan Pfaff |
| Nationality | American |
| Sport | |
| Country |  United States of America |
| Sport | Athletics |
| Club | ALTIS |
Pfaff started as a high school coach,[citation needed] and moved up to the college ranks starting at Wichita State University.[citation needed] He then served as a graduate assistant at the University of Houston from 1980-81 under Tom Tellez.[citation needed] Pfaff was then Women's Head Track and Field coach at UTEP from 1982-84.[citation needed] From 1985-94, he was the head field events coach at LSU, during which time the program won multiple national championships, including back to back men's and women's national titles from 1989-90.[citation needed] He then had assistant coaching stints at the University of Texas and the University of Florida.[citation needed].
Pfaff was hired to run the United States Olympic Training Center.[citation needed] In summer 2009, he was made head of the Lee Valley Athletics Centre by United Kingdom Athletics (UKA), to organise the coaching and training of the UK's athletes in the run-up to the 2012 London Olympics. He also coached and trained 10 athletes within the UKA programme.[1] Pfaff is currently one of the coaches for Altis, which is a professional track and field coaching staff as well as educational company. They are now based in Phoenix, Arizona. While Dan is listed as a coach, he is not involved in day-to-day coaching and currently resides in Austin, Texas.[2]
Coaching career
College
- University of Houston 1980-1981
- UTEP 1981-1985
- LSU 1985-1995
- Texas 1995-2003
- Florida 2003-2006
Professional
- USATF 2006-2009
- UKA 2009-2012
- ALTIS 2009-Present
Coaching Philosophy
Pfaff has coached: Donovan Bailey—The 1996 Atlanta Olympic Gold Medalist in the 100m; As well as Bruny Surin and Glenroy Gilbert—who teamed with Bailey to win the 4 × 100m relay in Atlanta; Greg Rutherford who won the London 2012 Olympics in the men's long jump.[citation needed]
His career in track and field has seen incredible success over the past four decades. He is considered a leader in high performance coaching.[3] Some of his high profile clients include NFL player Antonio Brown.