Women's Track and Field
- Title:
- Assistant Coach
- Email:
- bm11@princeton.edu
- Phone:
- 258-1231
Brian Mondschein begins his fourth year as the assistant coach of Princeton women's track & field in 2014-15.
In 2014, Mondschein coached Princeton's first women's track & field national champion, Julia Ratcliffe ('16). Ratcliffe won the 2014 NCAA hammer throw. She was the nation's leader all season and had an undefeated year with wins at Heps, ECACs and Penn Relays. Ratcliffe collected a number of records along the way including the New Zealand national record, and the Ivy and school records. Ratcliffe earned a number of honors including Regional Athlete of the Year, Scholar-Athlete of the Year and was a semifinalist for The Bowerman Trophy. In the summer of 2014 she earned a silver medal at the Commonwealth Games.
In his first year at Princeton, he coached two athletes to the NCAA Championships. Ratcliffe and triple jumper Imani Oliver ('14). Oliver captured honorable mention All-America honors at the 2013 outdoor championships, while Ratcliffe was second-team All-America for her 11th-place finish in the hammer.
He has coached five Tigers to Ivy League Heps titles, including: Ratcliffe twice in the hammer, Oliver in the triple and long jump, Tory Worthen ('13) and Samantha Anderson ('14) in both indoor/outdoor pole vault their senior years, and Taylor Morgan ('16) in the pentathlon.
Mondschein came to Princeton from Southeastern Louisiana where he was an assistant coach from 2007-2012. He primarily worked with the throwers and multi-event athletes. Mondschein helped to coach nine conference champions, 20 all-conference selections and two All-Americas.
Prior to joining the Lions' staff, Mondschein spent 14 years at Kutztown University, where he turned the program around and dominated the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference (PSAC). In 14 years, the team won 18 conference titles, had 90 individual conference champions and 38 earned All-America honors. Four athletes earned Academic All-America honors and two were the PSAC Scholar-Athlete of the Year. Mondschein was named the US Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) Regional Coach of the Year nine times and the PSAC Coach of the Year 10 times.
Mondschein also had stints as an assistant coach at Virginia from 1987-1992, assistant coach at Rice from 1984-87 and began his coaching career at Orange Coast College in 1980.
A 1977 graduate of the University of Washington, Mondschein was an All-America in the decathlon finishing seventh at the NCAAs his senior year. Four years earlier, in 1973, he was part of the US junior 4x400 relay that posted a then-junior world record. He earned a degree in broadcast journalism and English and was selected as Washington's Scholar-Athlete Award winner for 1977.
Mondschein is no stranger to the Ivy League. His late father Irv was a longtime coach at Penn from 1967-1987. A member of the USTFCCCA Hall of Fame, Irv competed in the 1948 Olympics in the decathlon and was an assistant coach of the 1988 Olympic team.
