Bucknell University Men's Cross Country

Donner has kept the Bison among the elite programs in the East. Donners mens team continued its recent resurgence in 2009-10, winning its first Patriot League Outdoor Championship title in 19 years in a thrilling three-point victory over Army before repeating as team champions the next three seasons. The men also claimed their first indoor league title since 1993 during the 2011-12 season. Donner led the Bucknell women to another Patriot League Triple Crown in 2009-10, earning league championships in cross country, indoor and outdoor track and field. That excellent season marked the third time in five years that Donners womens squad claimed a trio of titles in the same campaign (2005-06, 2006-07). The Bison also won Patriot League Championships in cross country and indoor track in 2007-08. More recently, Bucknell swept the indoor and outdoor titles with both Patriot League trophies in 2012-13 and 2014-15. Last season, Donner was named Mid-Atlantic Region Womens Coach of the Year by the USTFCCA following an impressive outdoor campaign. Donner guided the Bucknell women to its sixth outdoor title in eight years, running away with the championship by a 40.5-point margin. The Bison also set team records at the ECAC Outdoor Championships, finishing in a program-best third place while scoring a record 38 points. Under the direction of Donner, three athletes qualified for the NCAA East Regional Meet, the most in a single-season in program history.  Numerous athletes have qualified for IC4A/ECAC berths in recent years and that success has expanded to the NCAAs postseason. In 2013 Leonard Joseph became Bucknells first back-to-back NCAA Championship qualifier since 1980-81. The hammer thrower also earned a second All-America citation with an 11th-place finish. Donners Gerhard Fieldhouse office is ringed with 33 Patriot League championship team trophies six in womens cross country, 11 in womens indoor track and field, 11 in womens outdoor track and field, four in mens outdoor track and field and one in mens indoor track and field. The list of individual accomplishments among Bucknells cross country and track and field athletes during Donners first dozen years with the Orange and Blue is staggering. Including all three seasons of competition, his Bison womens teams have crowned 160 Patriot League champions, 88 All-East performers and 12 NCAA qualifiers. On the mens side, Bucknell has claimed 108 conference champions, 100 All-East citations, 13 NCAA qualifiers and two All-Americans under Donner. In his very first season at Bucknell in 2001, Donner helped Theresa Dennis and Greg Costello qualify for the NCAA Cross Country Championships, and two more Bison returned to the national meet in 2006 when Leanna Nastase and Matt Forys earned bids. The following spring, Forys went back to the NCAA Championships in outdoor track, where he qualified in the steeplechase. Record-setting pole vaulter Melanie Buczko made two NCAA appearances, first indoors in 2005 and then outdoors in 2006, and Maria Garcia made it to NCAAs in the hammer throw in 2006. Laura Rycek and Ted Heitzman joined the list in the javelin in 2011, and Joseph advanced in the hammer in 2012 and 2013. Before arriving at Bucknell in 2001, Donner, a native of Detroit, Mich., and a 1984 graduate of the University of Detroit, successfully transformed the Saint Francis (Pa.) program into one of the elite squads in the Northeast Conference. It was a banner campaign in 2000-01 for the Red Flash mens teams, as Saint Francis captured its second straight NEC cross country title, followed by indoor and outdoor track and field titles as well. The cross country unit placed third at the Mid-Atlantic Regional and vaulted to a Division I national ranking of 26th. Donner also guided the Red Flash women to an NEC cross country title in 1997 and the mens and womens cross country teams to All-Academic Team honors in five consecutive seasons. He was cited as the conference coach of the year in cross country and track and field seven times, and in 2000, he was honored as the top mens cross country mentor in the Mid-Atlantic Region. All 81 mens and womens indoor and outdoor track and field school records were shattered under Donners watch. Among the stellar individual achievements by his Red Flash student-athletes were a cross country All-American, 40 mens and womens NEC titles, 27 all-conference performers, nine U.S. Junior National qualifiers, two Canadian National qualifiers and six CoSIDA Academic All-Americans. One of his top distance athletes, Brian Sell, competed in the Olympic marathon in Beijing in 2008. Prior to his stint at Saint Francis, Donner served as assistant womens cross country and track and field coach at Central Michigan University from 1993-95. There, Donner coached eight All-Mid-American Conference performers and one NCAA qualifier. Following his graduation from Detroit, Donner established a new varsity program at his alma mater, becoming the schools first-ever womens coach. He served a nine-year stint at Detroit, where he coached 20 All-Midwestern Collegiate Conference student-athletes and guided the womens cross-country program to back-to-back MCC titles in 1986 and 1987. A member of the NCAA Division I Coaches Associations for cross country and track and field, Donner took over the reins of a Bucknell program that has listed among the elite in the East for the better part of two decades. Bucknells womens cross country team has captured eight of the past 15 Patriot League titles, while the mens team won three straight championships from 1990-92 and again from 1997-99. Similarly successful on the track, the Bison women have earned 11 of the last 15 Patriot League outdoor titles and 12 of the last 16 indoor championships. All told, the Bucknell mens and womens indoor and outdoor track and field squads have captured 35 Patriot League championships in 23 years. Donner currently resides in Lewisburg with his wife Amy, a statistics and mathematics instructor at Bucknell, and their eight-year-old daughter, Jillianne.

Delsite, a native of nearby Elysburg, Pa., had been the head coach at Duquesne for the previous 15 years. At Bucknell, he coaches the jumpers and multi-event athletes, and he helped 2014 graduate Ray Holmes sweep the long and triple jumps both indoors and outdoors during his senior year. Holmes also won an IC4A gold medal in the triple jump. Delsite was named head womens coach at Duquesne prior to the 1998-99 season. He helped start Duquesnes mens track and field program in 2001 and was named head mens coach in 2003, leading the Dukes to a fifth-place finish in the Atlantic 10 in his first year at the helm. Delsite went on to earn four Atlantic 10 Coach of the Year awards, highlighted by his being named both Mens and Womens Coach of the Year at the 2005 A-10 Outdoor Championships. He has coached 83 all-conference performers and four A-10 Championships performers of the meet, and every Duquesne mens and womens track and field record was set under his watch. Delsites Duquesne programs excelled in the classroom as well. Since 1998 his Dukes teams produced 11 national CoSIDA Academic All-Americans, 12 Atlantic 10 Scholar-Athlete of the Year selections and 81 members of the Atlantic 10 Academic All-Conference teams. Prior to being named head womens coach in 1998, Delsite served as the assistant coach during the 1996 and 1997 seasons. In addition, he served as the assistant athletic academic coordinator at Duquesne from 1996-98. Delsite graduated from Syracuse University in 1993 with a degree in nutrition and food management, and he was a standout jumper on the Orange track and field team. He won three Big East championships in the triple jump and two more in the long jump, and he qualified for the NCAA Championships in 1992. Delsite was a three-time team MVP and was a two-time recipient of the Neil Pratt Award given annually to a student who has exemplified outstanding leadership and lifestyle. He was also a two-time Academic All-District selection and a member of the Big East Postgraduate Scholarship Team. In 1990, he competed in the Junior World Championship in Plovdiv, Bulgaria and finished as the triple jump runner-up at the 1990 TAC Junior National Championship in Fresno, Calif., as a member of the USA Junior National team. Prior to his coaching tenure at Duquesne, Delsite served as the assistant mens and womens track and field and cross country coach at Robert Morris from 1994-96. He was interim head coach of the mens and womens track and field teams in the spring of 1995. A graduate of Southern Columbia High School, Delsite was named the No. 28 selection on the Press Enterprises Top 50 Sports Figures of the Century list in 1999. In 1996, Delsite was inducted into the Bernie Romanski Anthracite Chapter of the Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame.He won four PIAA state titles, three in the triple jump and one in the high jump, and he broke the PIAA Class AA state record in the triple jump. Delsite and his wife Jennifer have three children, Benjamin, Lydia and Sarah.

Frake works with both the mens and womens throwers. He was named the 2015 Womens Mid-Atlantic Region Assistant Coach of the Year following a dominant performance by the Bison throwers at the 2015 Patriot League Championships. Frakes impact since rejoining the team can be seen most by the success of senior Sophia Nnadi and junior Joseph Breen. Nnadi is a two-time Outdoor Track and Field Scholar Athlete of the Year, and was the 2015 Field Athlete of the Meet after the winning the gold in the shot put, silver in the hammer and bronze in the discus. Nnadi has earned several Patriot League titles in the shot put (3), weight throw (1) and hammer throw (1). Nnadi is also the school record holder in the shot put 49-10 ½.  The Bison women earned five All-East honors this spring and combined to score 68 points in the hammer and javelin events. Breen also reset Bucknells record books in the shot by recording the longest throw in school history (56-5 ¾) in 2016 at the 122 Penn Relays, while recording the second farthest throw in the discus (169-10) in program history. After graduating with a degree in accounting and economics, Frake spent time as a financial services professional with New York Life Insurance Company and five years as an educator in the Upper Dauphin Area School District in Elizabethville, Pa. While at Upper Dauphin, Frake was the business, computer and information technology teacher. He also spent time as the schools librarian, the district business manager and the school board secretary. Frake earned a masters of education degree in business education and office information systemsfrom Bloomsburg University in 2009 and a masters of science degree in school business leadership from Wilkes University in 2012. Frake was a multiple-time All-Patriot League selection, an All-East honoree and a member of the CoSIDA Academic All-District II First Team during his days as a Bison student-athlete. Frake was a four-year letterwinner and team captain in his senior season. In 2006, he was the Patriot League Champion in the hammer throw with a career-best 200-2 ½. At the time of his graduation, Frake ranked second all-time in the shot put and hammer throw. Dan is married to fellow Bucknellian, Hannah Irion-Frake 07. The couple has two sons, Caden and Connor. 

Alexander works with Bucknells sprinters and hurdlers, and he previously coached the jumpers and multi-event athletes. Alexanders impact since rejoining the team can be seen most readily by the success of graduates Andrew Powell and Christian Lupica. Powell won the Patriot League title in the heptathlon in 2011 and 2012. He also reclaimed his decathlon title in 2012 and set program records in both multi events. Lupica was the 2014 PL Track Athlete of the Meet after sweeping the 110 and 400-meter hurdles. Lupica has four career Patriot League gold medals and holds seven school records. As a member of the Bucknell track and field team, Alexander was a four-year letterwinner and served as a two-year captain. In 2002, he earned All-Patriot League recognition after finishing runner-up in the 110 hurdles at the league championships. As a senior in 2003, Alexander broke the program record in the 60 hurdles (8.42). Away from the track, he was a member of the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee in addition to acting as president of the Bucknell Chapter of the NAACP and secretary of the universitys chapter of Brothers and Sisters Empowered. After graduating from Bucknell with a degree in accounting, Alexander moved to Wagner College where he served as a graduate assistant coach and earned his MBA in 2005. He then took a position as an assistant with Fairleigh Dickinson, where he coached the Knights to conference titles in the outdoor long jump and 400 hurdles in addition to ECAC/IC4A qualifying marks in five events. More recently, Alexander completed a turn as an assistant and recruiting coordinator at the University of Detroit Mercy where he helped his team to titles in the 60, 100, 400 and 400 hurdles. A total of 14 school records also fell under Alexanders watch. Alexander is married to fellow Bucknellian and former All-Patriot League sprinter Monique Boley Alexander 05. The couple has a son, Richard III, and a daughter, Ruby.