The track and field team implements changes to coaching staff

The Lehigh track and field and cross country teams have adjusted to their restructured coaching staff for the fall season.

Women’s track and field head coach Khayla Atte will now lead the men’s team as well, while former director of recruiting and student-athlete development Brooke Astor is taking the new role of associate coach and director of operations. 

The goal of installing this new staffing structure, Atte said, was to more effectively divide up the resources available to the track and field teams and to provide centralized attention to individual athletes or groups within the whole team.

She said this new method of having an umbrella of people and groups beneath one person is the solution to provide uniform messaging and culture development.

“Since the men’s and women’s teams share facilities, finances and everything else, it no longer made sense to have two head coaches,” Atte said. “From a sheer organizational standpoint, (having one head coach) is much easier.”

Atte said, similar to the structure of a football team, track and field is a collection of many smaller, more specialized teams all requiring their own specialized direction. 

Identifying and using the strengths not only on the men’s and women’s teams but also on the coaching staff is how Atte said she has been helping her team change perspectives — from focusing on a disadvantage or challenge against another program to appreciating the things that give Lehigh its edge.

“We have coaches that have dynamic backgrounds and that combined with our strong competition at high levels in multiple events makes us extremely flexible in what we are capable of coaching,” Atte said.

Atte described the staff as an “amoeba,” able to fluctuate and recalibrate with a moment’s notice. Atte said her team is better equipped to deal with last-minute changes than a team who operates like a “caterpillar,” demanding uniformity and synchronicity.

Learning to adjust the way her relationships with athletes and coaches look now, compared to how they looked in the past before she was head coach, has shown Atte how important it is to foster a sense of individuality and inclusivity.

She said allowing her athletes to operate under more than just the identity of a student-athlete and encouraging them to not view themselves under such strict restraints has been of utmost importance to her.

“Gender, religion, hobbies, racial components — we have been trying to talk about all of these things and put them in front of mind so that they realize that they are a collection of so many things,” Atte said. “We want them to understand that their value is not tied to one single thing.”

Atte said although Lehigh has always engaged with the athletics department in terms of leadership development, identity formation is something new to the program that she looks forward to emphasizing in her new role, especially as a Lehigh alumna.

In an effort to connect with the needs of their athletes, the team is relying on a leadership council that acts as a liaison between the coaching staff and the teams, including representatives from each event group.

Senior distance runner and leadership council member Christina Yakaboski said members of the council are in charge of leading study halls, recruiting events, team activities and practices. 

Athletes are nominated to these roles by their event group coaches.

Yakaboski said the council encourages the exchange of pertinent information among both track and field and cross country teams.

“On a big team, it’s easy for information to get lost or misconstrued, so this kind of structure helps to mitigate that issue,” Yakaboski said.

Junior multi-event runner and leadership council member Gideon Coprivnicar said he thinks these changes were more challenging for the upperclassmen who had more experience with the previous coaching staff organization.

However, he said these changes have now led to more trust between the teams and the coaching staff, who have done their best to be transparent with the team. 

“The majority of the team trusts coaches more than they did in the past, even before the (staffing) change,” Coprivnicar said. “It’s evident in work ethic and responses to coaches during and outside of practice.”