Ron Helmer Position: Head Coach Experience: 18 years

Ron Helmer is entering his 19th season on the Hilltop, and his fifth as Director of the Georgetown University men's and women' track & field and cross country program. He was promoted to Director in July of 1999 after serving as Associate Head Coach for the Hoyas for seven seasons and assistant coach for five years prior. After the restructuring of the track & field office, Helmer assumed coaching responsibilities for both the men and women's squads.

Helmer has guided the women's team to unparalleled success since his appointment to Associate Head Coach for Men & Women just prior to the 1991-92 season. He joined the GU coaching ranks in 1986 as an assistant coach and was promoted to Associate Head Coach in 1991. Helmer has coached NCAA Champions Jolene Staeheli (mile), Miesha Marzell (1,500-meters) and two NCAA distance medley relay champions, as well as four Penn Relays Championship of America teams. In addition, he has mentored All-Americans in the sprints, hurdles, middle distance and distance events, as well as several cross-country All-Americans. Helmer has also been recognized numerous times by his peers as one of the top track & field coaches/cross country coaches in the country.

Under Helmer's direction, the Hoya women posted 15-consecutive top-ten finishes at the NCAA Cross Country Championship. Helmer's women's teams have won nine BIG EAST Championships, including both the indoor and outdoor championships in 1992 and 1996, and three-consecutive cross-country titles (2000, 2001 and 2001). In addition, the Hoya women also won their first ever Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) Indoor team title in 1994, a feat the squad repeated in 1996 and 1998. In 2000, the GU women won both the ECAC Indoor and Outdoor Championship crowns. The team defended its ECAC outdoor title in 2001. Georgetown has finished as high as third at the NCAA Indoor Championship (1998) and fifth at the NCAA Outdoor meet (1993).

The 1998 indoor track and field season was one of the program's best. The Hoyas won the BIG EAST and ECAC Indoor Championships and then placed third, the highest GU finish ever, at the NCAA Indoor Championship. Georgetown also had eight student-athletes return to the Hilltop with All-America honors. Helmer was selected as the Division I United States Track Coaches Association (USTCA) District II Indoor Track & Field Coach of the Year, and the Georgetown coaching staff was tapped for 1998 BIG EAST Indoor Coaching Staff of the Year accolades. Coach Helmer guided the GU women to indoor and outdoor BIG EAST titles in 1995-96, as well as to the ECAC Indoor crown. Two Hoyas returned to Georgetown as NCAA Champions that season. During his 15 years on the Hilltop, Helmer has coached 55student-athletes to a total of 165 All-America certificates. He also produced 58 BIG EAST individual Champions; 44 ECAC Champions; six Penn Relay Champions; as well as 37 current individual school record holders and members of 14 current GU record relay teams.

Helmer came to GU from Woodbridge High School in Virginia where he was head coach for four years. Prior to that, he was the head coach at Virginia High School in Bristol, Virginia, for eight years. He was named Virginia Coach of the Year in 1980 and 1983; and was selected as the Virginia Girls' Track Coach of the Year in 1981, as well as the Boys' Cross Country Coach of the Decade in Virginia. During his career, Helmer's teams won 45 district championships, 35 regional championships and 10 state championships. Helmer produced nine high school All-Americans and 13 Kinney Footlocker National Cross Country qualifiers.

Helmer is a graduate of Southwestern College in Kansas College in Winfield, Kansas, where he received a B.A. in math. He went on to earn a Masters degree in physical education from East Tennessee State University.

Married, Helmer lives in Woodbridge, Virginia. He and his wife, Mary, who teaches sixth grade, have three children: Tori, age 26, a high school math teacher and track coach; Justin, age 22, a senior at Southwestern; and Kari, age 16.