Michael Eskind is Stanford's associate head coach and recruiting coordinator, in addition to coaching the jumps, pole vault, and multi-events. He has coached at Stanford since the 2013 season.
Cardinal athletes have had great success under Eskind, including Harrison Williams and three-time Pac-12 triple jump champion Darian Brooks.
Stanford's first male NCAA multi-events champion, Williams captured the heptathlon at the 2019 NCAA Indoor Championships by setting a school multis record for the seventh time, scoring 6,042 points.
In 2018, Williams won the Pac-12 decathlon championship placed third at the U.S. Championships.
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.
Williams became Stanford's first conference decathlon champion in 24 years and his 1,641-point margin of victory is believed to be a meet record.
Brooks, who won titles from 2014-16, became the first three-time Pac-12 men's triple jump champion since 1960.
Eskind also created a strong pole vault group among men and women. In 2018, both Kaitlyn Merritt and Erika Malaspina advanced to the NCAA Outdoor Championships. In 2016, the men's team featured three vaulters -- Dylan Duvio, Williams, and Garrett Starkey -- over 17-3.
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 3/4 (5.53 meters). He was the Pac-12 runner-up in 2016.
Under Eskind, Jaak Uudmae was one of the most versatile jumpers 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 in 2018, in the women's triple jump, Marisa Kwiatkowski set a Philippines national triple jump record of 42-4 3/4 (12.92 meters) and Aria Small (42-3 1/2, 12.89m) became the No. 2 freshman in school history.
In all, 22 different athletes coached by Eskind are on the Cardinal all-time indoor and outdoor top-10 performers' lists.
Eskind, a native of Nashville, Tennessee, came to Stanford from Virginia, where he coached jumpers, vaulters and multis for four seasons. He coached Cavaliers to four Atlantic Coast Conference individual championships, four school records, and five NCAA meet appearances. Among them was Marcus Robinson, 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.
Eskind was an assistant at Boston University for two seasons, designing training plans for athletes in the sprints, vertical jumps, throws, and multi-events.
Eskind is married to Kristin and they have a son, Ben.