St. Lawrence University Women's Cross Country

Howard Director of Cross Country and Track and Field, Head Women's Cross Country Coach, Associate Athletic Director Entering his 24th season of overseeing the St. Lawrence University Cross-Country and Track and Field programs, Mike Howard will again serve as the head coach of the women's cross country team in 2012. Howard, the Director of the Saints Cross-Country and Track & Field Programs, also oversees the Men's and Women's Track & Field program and serves the university as an Associate Athletic Director in charge of all scheduling and NCAA compliance duties within the department. He has guided his team to three consecutive Atlantic Regional titles (2009, 2010, 2011), earning automatic bids to the NCAA Championship each year.  The Saints finished second in the nation in 2009, the highest place in program history.  Howard has coached some of the top cross country and track athletes in the university's history, including three All-Americans in the past three years (Wendy Pavlus, Johannah Ludington and Jenna Hulton) and a two-time national champion (Pavlus).  Howard, a 1987 St. Lawrence graduate, who stepped out of the role as the Head Cross-Country coach after the fall of 2000, has won numerous Coach of the Year Awards including six United States Track & Field and Cross-Country Coaches Association NCAA Division III Cross Country Regional Coach of the Year honors, most recently in 2011. He has won 19 conference "Coach of the Year" honors during his tenure with the Cross-Country and Track & Field programs as well as earning the same honor in New York State for both sports several times. He has served as the President of the New York State Collegiate Track and Field Conference which oversees the state meets in cross country and indoor and outdoor track and as the Atlantic Regional representative for Cross-Country. Howard, a standout in both cross country and track as an undergraduate was a three time competitor in the NCAA Cross Country Championships and was a consistent scorer for the Saints in the distance races in both indoor and outdoor track. Howard began his coaching career as an assistant coach in both track and field and cross country in 1987, and moved to a full-time coaching position in 1988 and Associate Athletic Director at the start of the 1998-99 academic year.

Curran Head Women's Cross Country and Track and Field Coach Kate Curran, a former Penn State cross country and track and field athlete, joined the Saint staff as head women's track and field coach and assistant men's and women's cross country coach in the fall of 2008.  She served as president of the New York State Collegiate Track Conference for two terms and was the Atlantic Regional representative to the NCAA Cross Country and Track and Field Committee from 2012-2016. Her St. Lawrence teams have finished in the top-15 of the Deb Vercauteren Program of the Year rankings six times as selected by the US Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association, with three top-five finishes including each of the last two seasons.  Under her leadership, the Saints have won 11 Liberty League titles; six indoor and five outdoor, and has earned Liberty League Coach of the Year Honors 11 times since taking over the program for the 2008-09 indoor season. Additionally, she was named USTFCCCA Atlantic Region Coach of the Year for the indoor and outdoor seasons in 2014, and again for the indoor season in 2015.  To date in the 2015-16 season, she has coached 33 Liberty League major award winners and 34 St. Lawrence All-Americans including three double national champions, Wendy Pavlus, Aly Pirinelli and Divya Biswal. Pavlus was named USTFCCCA National Track Athlete of the Year in 2011 and Biswal earned USTFCCCA National Field Athlete of the Year in 2015. Curran came to St. Lawrence from Susquehanna University where she served as an assistant cross country and track and field coach, working with distance and mid-distance runners along with pole vaulters and had two NCAA qualifiers in the pole vault in the 2006-07 season. As a Penn State undergraduate, she was a member of the Nittany Lion cross country and track and field teams and was varsity cross country captain as a senior. She was a member of the 2004 Big Ten Champion women's track and field team and earned Penn State and Big Ten Scholar-Athlete awards and was the recipient of the Big Ten Sportsmanship Award in 2005. Updated 4/16