UC Davis’ men and women’s track and field coach, Drew Wartenburg, captured the 2011-12 season “Coach of the Year” award for leading the team to the Big West Championships. In 2009, UC Davis’ first season in the Division 1, Wartenburg was honored as the league’s Men’s Coach of the Year.
In only his first year at the helm of the entire UC Davis program, Wartenburg guided the team to a spot at the Big West following a series of successful meets, such as the Hornet Invitational and the Sacramento State Open.
During the Big West Championships, Wartenburg led the women’s team to its first track title. The Aggies won this year’s title by a half-point over UC Santa Barbara (170-169.5) in a competition that came down to the last event: the 4×400 relay.
UC Davis won seven individual titles en route to the team championship and had scorers throughout both the track and the field events on Saturday afternoon.
Throughout the season, Wartenburg has inspired Track Athlete of the Year Sarah Sumpter, Ashley Hearn and the rest of the Aggies to new heights and generated positive acclamation for the UC Davis track and field team.
“Everything is relative,” Wartenburg said. “But any year that you set goals for team success and you’re able to come together and collaborate to achieve them is really rewarding.”
“It’s a situation of taking pleasure rather than taking credit for me, because credit does not go to me,” he said. “But I’d be severely understating it if I said this wasn’t an extremely pleasing year as a coach.”
— Veena Bansal
