Michael Eskind, approaching his sixth season at Stanford, was promoted to Associate Head Coach and recruiting coordinator for the Cardinal track and field program.
Eskind will continue to coach the jumps, pole vault and combined events, but the title reflects his value to the entire program and his understanding of how to recruit Stanford-caliber student-athletes.
"Mike's promotion speaks to how he is so much more to our program than just a jumps multis coach," said Chris Miltenberg, Stanford's Franklin P. Johnson Director of Track and Field. "His excitement for moving our entire program forward is infectious and has been a crucial part of our progress over the past five years.
"He understands how to identify and recruit the right student-athletes to Stanford better than anyone. As we continue to build towards being one of the very best teams in the country, Mike's leadership is crucial."
Cardinal athletes have had great success under Eskind, including Darian Brooks, the first three-time Pac-12 men's triple jump champion since 1960, and Harrison Williams, an Olympic Trials decathlon qualifier as a sophomore in 2016 and three-time NCAA top-six multi-events placer.
Also, pole vaulter Dylan Duvio placed third in the 2015 NCAA Outdoor Championships and was ninth in the U.S. Championships the same year, with a best of 18-1 ¾ (5.53 meters). He was the Pac-12 runner-up in 2016.
"I am incredibly honored and humbled by this announcement and want to thank Coach Miltenberg and deputy athletics director Patrick Dunkley for allowing me to fill this role," Eskind said. "It is my goal to simply help Coach Milt and the rest of the staff in any way that I can, both in recruiting and in other day-to-day responsibilities.
"Stanford is such a special and unique university and I'm excited to do everything that I can to contribute to our ultimate goal of competing for national championships while encouraging the very best student-athletes in America."
In his second collegiate decathlon, Williams broke Stanford's oldest record, the 63-year-old mark set by Bob Mathias while winning the gold medal and setting a world record at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics. Williams went on to finish fourth at the NCAA Championships and repeated as U.S. junior champion while breaking the U.S. junior record.
Remarkably, Williams set personal records in each of his first 12 multi-event competitions under Eskind, culminating with his fourth school decathlon record, of 8,032 points -- the highest fifth-place score in NCAA Championships history -- in 2016. His 5,970 total was the highest sixth-place heptathlon score in NCAA indoor meet history. In all, Williams has broken Stanford multi-event records six times and still has two more seasons of outdoor eligibility remaining.
Nineteen of Eskind's athletes established themselves in the Stanford all-time indoor and outdoor top-10 performers' lists, including 11 current Cardinal.
Among his current jumpers, Jaak Uudmae has been one of the most versatile in Stanford history, with bests of 25-9 1/4 in the long jump, 51-5 3/4 in the triple, and 6-10 3/4 in the high jump. And triple jumper Marisa Kwiatkowski set a Philippines national record of 41-7 1/4 in 2017. Pole vaulter Kaitlyn Merritt, going into her sophomore season, is No. 3 on Stanford's lists both indoors and outdoors.
Eskind, a native of Nashville, Tennessee, came to Stanford from Virginia, where he also coached the jumps, pole vault, and combined events. He coached Cavaliers to four Atlantic Coast Conference individual championships, four school records, and five NCAA meet appearances. Among them was Marcus Robinson, later a Stanford volunteer assistant, who set an ACC indoor triple jump record and became Virginia's first All-America in the men's jumps in 35 years.
Eskind also worked with two of the top female triple jumpers in the country, each winning U.S. Olympic trials championships: Shani Marks in 2008 and Amanda Smock in 2012.
Eskind was a decathlete at Wake Forest, where he graduated in 2003 with degrees in political science and communication. He earned his master's in exercise and sport sciences with a focus in athletic administration in 2005 from University of Florida, where he began his coaching career as a volunteer assistant.