Elmhurst University Track and Field changes up the nest with new coach

Track and field season is just around the corner ,and the Elmhurst University track and field team has made some changes to the lineup.

The team gained a new coach in September, Tyler Sheehan. He joined the staff as an assistant coach and has started training the men and women’s teams in sprints and hurdles. 

A North Central College alum and a past coach for North Central’s track and field team, Sheehan is looking forward to staying in the CCIW.

“From being in the CCIW the last five years, to really see the turn around of this program, we could see it coming.” said Sheehan, “To see it happen last year was pretty remarkable and it seemed like what [Head Coach] Jordan [Bartolazzi] and [Assistant Head Coach] David [Stone] had going on here seemed like a great place to be a part of to continue to help them go and achieve different goals.”

The Bluejays have been steadily progressing since Bartolazzi became head coach of the women’s cross country and track and field teams in 2017 and taking over the men’s programs in 2019.

Last year, the women’s track and field team went from a fifth place finish at the CCIW Championships in 2021 to a second place finish, with seven members of both teams qualifying to the NCAA National Championships. 

Sheehan hopes to add to that progress with the coaching experience he has gained. His first coaching job was at St. Charles East High School in 2011 right out of graduating and running for North Central. 

“I wanted to stay involved with track and field, so I’m like ‘Alright, I’ll get into coaching high school’ because I wanted other people to have a similar experience I had.” said Sheehan.

He continued to coach at the high school level until trying out collegiate coaching as an assistant coach in 2015. Sheehan had coached sprints, hurdles, and jumps at Anderson University in South Carolina for a year. .

Throughout high school and college, Sheehan has raced sprinting events such as the 200m and 400m, but he did not have hurdling experience until Anderson. He has worked hard to figure out his coaching style of hurdles over the last six years, getting advice from other hurdles coaches, going to clinics, and researching the event. 

After adding hurdles to his repertoire, Sheehan came back to Illinois in 2016 and volunteered as a high school coach before joining the North Central coaching staff in 2017.

He coached at North Central for five years before joining our Bluejay staff. During his time with the North Central staff, he also decided to get his master’s degree in sports management to help him “make college coaching [his] life”.

Sheehan has taken on coaching the hurdle and sprint events from Stone, who was also a part of the coaching changes.

Stone was promoted to assistant head coach in October from his assistant coach title he has had for the past four years on the Bluejay staff. 

Stone has had a lot of success in coaching the sprinting, hurdles, and jumps, and he will have Sheehan’s help to help the team progress even more this season.

A few other changes were the addition of Graduate Assistant Coaches Andrew Matuszewski and Jillian Cole, who are GAs on the cross country team as well, after the loss of the assistant coach of cross country and track and field, Mollie Dalton.

Cole is a graduate from Illinois Wesleyan University where she ran cross country and track and field, and Matuszewski ran for the Bluejay’s cross country and track teams.

Dalton also started her coaching career as a GA for the Elmhurst cross country and track teams before being hired as an assistant coach in 2019. She has moved to coaching distance for Illinois State at the start of this year.

With all these changes, we’ll see how it affects the progression of the Bluejays track and field program. Sheehan has already shown how he awaits it.

“I look forward to getting to know everyone, build bonds with them all, and help them achieve some of their goals,” said Sheehan.

Photo provided by- Elmhurst University Athletics