U.S. national team coaching veteran Rahn Sheffield joined the Stanford track and field staff in October, 2024, to coach sprints and hurdles.
Sheffield came to Stanford after holding head coaching positions at San Diego State and UC Davis. The 2025 season is Sheffield's 40th season of collegiate coaching.
Sheffield’s national team experience includes U.S. head coach at two World Indoor Championships (2012, 2022) and sprint/hurdles/relay coach at another (2010). Sheffield was the U.S. sprints/hurdles coach at three World Under-20 Championships (2006, 2015, and 2018).
As director of track and field/cross country at UC Davis from 2015-19, Sheffield was a two-time Big West Conference Track and Field Coach of the Year and led the UCD women to two Big West women's team titles. Including the 2014 season as a UCD assistant coach, Sheffield's athletes won 27 Big West individual championships, and set 12 school records. He had 71 NCAA West Prelims qualifiers and his athletes earned eight All-America honors.
In 25 seasons coaching at San Diego State (1985-2009) – the last 19 as head women’s track and field/cross country coach – Sheffield coached 19 All-Americans. He was the 2007 West Regional Women’s Track and Field Coach of the Year and a two-time Mountain West Conference Outdoor Coach of the Year, and a Western Athletic Conference Coach of the Year.
Seventy-eight of his Aztecs qualified for the NCAA Championships, with three capturing individual titles.
While at San Diego State, Sheffield coached his sister, LaTanya Sheffield, to the 1985 NCAA 400 hurdles championship, an American record, and into the 1988 Olympic final, where she placed eighth.
Sheffield was a personal coach to Brenda Taylor, who reached the 2004 Olympic 400 hurdles final and at San Diego State coached a legally blind athlete, Marla Runyan, who would go on to win four Paralympic gold medals and place eighth in the 2000 Olympic Games in the 1,500.
Another area of Sheffield’s expertise is in speed and conditioning, coaching NFL stars such as Marshall Faulk, Cam Newton, and Robert Griffin III through his own company, Sheffield Elite.
Sheffield served as men’s and women’s head coach at Cuyamaca College in El Cajon, California, for the four seasons before arriving at Stanford.
Sheffield is a native of Los Angeles and competed in the 400 hurdles at East Los Angeles College and at San Diego State, where he graduated with an industrial arts degree in 1979. He reached two NCAA 400 hurdles finals for the Aztecs, placing seventh in 1979 (50.68) and eighth in 1977 (50.91).
Besides his success as a coach, Sheffield is recognized in the track and field community for his unique rotation hurdling technique that has been noted by the Olympic Development Committee.
Sheffield's niece, Kala Stepter, competed for Stanford from 2010-13, advanced to the 2013 NCAA Outdoor Championships in the 4x400 relay and stands No. 8 on Stanford’s all-time list in the 400 hurdles (59.42).