California Polytechnic State University - San Luis Obispo Men's Track

Conover was named Cal Polys Director of Track & Field and Cross Country on Dec. 30, 2009. Conover is currently in his 21st season overall at Cal Poly, and has led the Mustangs to 15 total appearances at the NCAA Cross Country Championships (with seven of those coming as a full team). He has coached the mens cross country squad to five Top 25 national rankings, including a 13th-place finish in 2003, 10th in 2004, 13th in 2006 and 11th in 2007. Conover has been named the Big West Coach of the Year a combined 14 times on either the mens or womens sides, as well as the United States Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association West Region Coach of the Year in three seasons (2000, 2003 and 2011). During his tenure at Cal Poly, Conover has directly coached a total of eight All-Americans, while the program as a whole has also produced an additional four All-Americans since he was appointed director. He has also coached 57 NCAA West Region mens and womens track qualifiers and 40 all-regional honorees in cross country. Conover also has coached 49 individual conference champions between track and cross country, and has mentored four Big West Track Athletes of the Year, 11 Cross Country Athletes of the Year, three Freshmen of the Year in track and 13 Freshmen of the Year in cross country. He has guided Mustang competitors to 49 top-10 all-time performances in Cal Poly track history, including the school record-holders for the mens 5,000 and 10,000 meters, along with the womens steeplechase. The programs women and men have also earned USTFCCCA All-Academic Team status a combined seven times in cross country on Conovers watch, as well as six consecutive times in track & field since 2011. Additionally, Conover has coached 27 national coaches association all-academic student-athletes on an individual basis. In 2016, Conover also saw Al Gamez Jr. claim a Big West Scholar-Athlete of the Year Award, making him one of 18 individuals among 2,500 student-athletes throughout the conference to be so honored. It was the fourth consecutive year in which one of Conovers student-athletes received the accolade (and the seventh occasion since 2000). He also coached the all-sports Cal Poly Male Athlete of the Year in 2007 and the Female Athlete of the Year in 2013. Conover was a nine-time All-American distance runner at Humboldt State, and earned the rare distinction of becoming an All-American in all three NCAA divisions (including a 23rd-place finish at the 1980 Division I Cross Country Championships). In the spring of 1981, he won the Division II national title in the 10,000 meters, before also winning the national championship in cross country that fall. In 1988, Conover was the U.S. Olympic Trials champion in the marathon and went on to run at the Seoul Games. He competed professionally from 1984-96 and was a four-time Olympic Trials qualifier. A graduate of Miramonte High School in Orinda, Calif., Conover earned his bachelors degree in natural resource planning and interpretation at Humboldt State in 1983 and his masters degree from Cal Poly in city and regional planning in 1989. Conover, who survived a battle with Hodgkins disease in 1993 and 1994, was inducted into the Humboldt State University Hall of Fame in 1993. Prior to coaching at Cal Poly, Conover was an assistant planner with San Luis Obispo County from 1989-92 and editor of The Runners Schedule magazine from 1992-95. He served internships in the planning departments for the city of San Luis Obispo in 1985 and Morro Bay in 1987. Mark lives with his wife, Kelly, in San Luis Obispo. They had triplets in May of 2007 (two girls, Audrey and Marley, and a boy, Cordell).

Williams serves as the programs recruiting coordinator and strength and development coach, in addition to his day-to-day track & field responsibilities. The 1978 Occidental College graduate brings to Cal Poly a vast expertise and experience ranging from collegiate to international competitions. Prior to coming to Cal Poly, Williams served as the USA Mens Manager at the Pan American Junior Championships (in 2005) and as the head coach of the Guatemala National Track & Field Team (2002-03). He also served as the head coach for the USA Womens World Indoor Championships Team in 2001, as an assistant with the World Championships Team in 1999 (in Seville, Spain) and as the head coach for the Womens Junior Pan American Championships Team in 1997 (Havana, Cuba). In 2003, he became the USATF Womens Sprint Development Coordinator. At South Carolina State from 1992-94, Williams coached All-American high jumper Ken Washington. Also during his tenure at SCSU, he was an assistant on the World Junior Championships Team and the U.S. Olympic Festival Team. Before joining the SCSU staff, he coached five All-Americans and 32 conference champions while at UC Irvine from 1981-92, as well as two national champions and the national record-holder in the mens high jump at his alma mater from 1978-79. In 1994, he formed Ballistic Sports Development in Norwalk, Conn., where he developed training concepts for professional athletes and corporate executives.

Ashcroft, a former first-team All-American at Nevada, came to Cal Poly before the start of the 2013 season after spending her previous six years on the staff at Oregon. Ashcroft coaches the Mustangs pole vaulters, high jumpers, throwers and multi-events specialists. In her first spring in San Luis Obispo, she coached John Prader to the Big West Conference pole vault championship, along with a school record of 18 feet, 7.25 inches that ranked third nationally.   High jumper Danielle Bryan also earned an All-America honorable mention under Ashcrofts guidance in 2015, when she advanced to the NCAA Championships by clearing 5 10. In 2016, Mustang freshman Megan Mooney won the conference title for the javelin with a mark of 153 2. Cal Polys decathletes were also No. 2 in the country in the USTFCCCA national rankings, as Devin Bennett, Ted Scranton, Ivy Adair and Jacob Rickman averaged season-best scores of 6,932 points, placing them ahead of No. 3 Texas A&M (6,918), behind only No. 1 Wisconsin (7,423). Altogether at Cal Poly, Ashcroft has coached 14 student-athletes who rank in the top 10 throughout school history for their respective events. During her tenure with the Ducks from 2006 to 2012, she coached four individual national champions and 40 All-Americans. While on the staff at Oregon, Ashcroft was part of eight Pac-10 and two Pac-12 team conference championships and four NCAA team national championships. During that stretch, Ashcroft mentored Melissa Gergel to seven All-American performances, culminating in the NCAA national pole vault title in 2011 (at 14 7.25, an all-time meet record). Also in 2011, Anne Kesselring (800m outdoor) and Jordan Hasay (mile and 3K indoor) won national championships under the guidance of Ashcroft and legendary coach Vin Lananna. Prior to coaching at Oregon, Ashcroft spent four seasons (2003 to 2006) on the Wichita State staff, first as a graduate assistant and then as an assistant coach. Over that span, in the pole vault, long jump and triple jump, the Shockers recorded six Missouri Valley Conference titles, earned 26 all-conference accolades, set 11 program records and seven MVC records, and made four NCAA Championships appearances. The graduate of Nevada took seventh place at the 2002 NCAA Championships after setting the Wolf Packs school record with a jump of 13 3.75. She was also a conference pole vault champion in both the Big West and the WAC, as well as a 2000 U.S. Olympic Trials qualifier, and was named the State of Nevadas NCAA Woman of the Year. Ashcroft earned her degree in secondary education at Nevada and added a masters in sports administration at Wichita State in 2005.

Bayley joined the Mustangs as an assistant coach in the summer of 2014. Bayley spent the previous three years coaching and serving as the recruiting coordinator for the Harvard womens teams. In November of 2013, she led the Crimson to their first national ranking (No. 27). That came a season after another milestone, when Harvard qualified for its first national cross country championship meet on a team basis since 1983. In track, Harvard won back-to-back indoor Ivy League titles in 2013 and 2014, as well as the outdoor championship in the latter year. Including track events, Bayleys middle-distance and distance runners (a group that included two All-Northeast Region honorees) broke more than 10 school records. Prior to her time in Cambridge, Bayley was an assistant coach at Santa Clara, where she mentored a trio of Broncos to All-West Coast Conference accolades. She also served as an assistant at Saint Marys in 2009-10. Before moving back into the collegiate ranks, she began her coaching career in 2006 with the Buffalo Chips Running Team in Sacramento. The junior womens club claimed two national AAU team championships and three individual national titles (one of which was won by a USA Junior World Team qualifier). From 2008 to 2013, Bayley also was the Elite Athlete Coordinator for the California International Marathon, which sent 25 women and eight men to the 2012 U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials. As an all-conference runner at UC Davis, Bayley advanced to the 2002 national championship meet. In 2004, she finished 10th at the Stanford Invitational and went on to earn the Aggies Outstanding Senior Leader Award. She graduated from UC Davis in 2004 as a double-major in communications and Chicano studies, with an emphasis on social and public policy. Bayley has also earned certification for Level 5 Elite Coach Status from the IAAF and Level 3 for Endurance from USA Track & Field.