A great first season in 2015-16 has assistant coach Nate Arnold hungry for more in 2016-17 as he begins his second year at William & Mary. Arnold assists with all aspects of the Tribe's nationally-recognized men's and women's teams, with an emphasis on coaching the jumpers and short sprinters.
In his first year at W&M, Arnold helped pole vaulter Derek O'Connell reach new heights, with a third-straight CAA Championship outdoors and winning the IC4A titles both indoors and outdoors. That was also just window-dressing, however, as O'Connell earned first-team All-America honors indoors by placing seventh at the NCAA Championships, a first-ever for a Tribe vaulter. He also set school records both indoors and outdoors, getting as high as 5.42m (17-9.25) during the winter and 5.36m (17-7) in winning the IC4A outdoors.
Other notables included Davion Hutt, who broke W&M's 100m dash record with his run of 10.58 seconds at Duke in mid-April. That was the first time since 1968 that the team's fastest event had been reset. Indoors, Hutt also tied his own record in the 60m dash, running 6.81 at the IC4A Championships. Multi-specialist Alex Hedrick set lifetime-bests both indoors and outdoors, breaking his own school record in the heptathlon to earn All-East honors indoors and during the spring, taking second at the CAA Championships and fourth at IC4As in the decathlon.
On the women's side, Arnold helped develop freshman Brianna Miller into the CAA runner-up in the heptathlon, and she also ranked as the Tribe's no.-1 long and triple jumper. Classmate Grace Becker jumped 1.65m (5-4.25) in the high jump outdoors, and junior Abby Jones soared over a lifetime-best 1.70m (5-7) to take second at the conference meet and qualify for the ECAC Championships for the first time.
Arnold came to Williamsburg after spending the previous year at Duke as a volunteer assistant in both the pole vault and the multi-events. While he was with the Blue Devils, he helped the athletes with their technical development which resulted in three NCAA East Preliminary qualifiers, as well as helping Megan Clark take second in the pole vault at the NCAA Indoor Championships. Arnold's athletes also won ACC titles in the women's pole vault (indoors and outdoors) and the decathlon, as well as six other place-winners.
Before his time at Duke, Arnold was a graduate assistant at the University of the Cumberlands in Williamsburg, Ky., while taking graduate classes in education. He was responsible for the jumps and multi-events, and also helped plan and direct the strength program for the sprinters. His time at Cumberlands produced two Mid-South conference champions, in the men's pole vault and men's javelin, and a total of eight conference medalists as the men's team won the Mid-South title and the women placed second.
While an athlete at the University of Memphis and shortly after graduating, Arnold took coaching internships in Europe. In the summer of 2012, he learned under former Olympian Aleksandrs Obizajevs in Latvia, focusing on the technical and power development of high-level athletes as well as the psychology of the pole vault. Later that same summer, he worked with Polish professional coach Wiaczeslaw Kaliniczenko on strength and gymnastics-based training styles and techniques for the pole vault. Arnold spent two stints, in the summer of 2013 and winter of 2014, learning under German coach Wolfgang Striezel for the speed development and event techniques for intermediate to advanced-level athletes in the multi-events.
Arnold graduated from Memphis in 2013 with a degree in liberal studies. While on the team with the Tigers, he was a multiple-scorer at the Conference USA championships both indoors and outdoors in the pole vault, and qualified for the 2013 NCAA East Preliminaries with a best height of 16-4.
