Eric Bennett enters his fourth year on the Rochester coaching staff, after previously spending five seasons as an assistant at Elizabethtown College, his alma mater. Bennett works with the Yellowjacket pole vaulters, horizontal jumpers, and multi-event athletes.
Bennett has coached Rochester student-athletes to three New York State Collegiate Track Conference (NYSCTC) individual titles and three conference runner-up finishes since arriving in 2009. Under Bennett’s tutelage, Will McMunigal ‘12 won 2010 NYSCTC indoor titles in the Pentathlon and Long Jump and was named Field Event Athlete of the Meet at the 2010 NYSCTC Indoor Championships. Melissa Skevington ‘10 also won the 2010 NYSCTC Outdoor title in the Triple Jump. During the 2011 season, sophomore Carina Luck ‘12 was an NCAA provisional qualifier in the Triple Jump and finished the outdoor season ranked 30th nationally in the event. The 2012 season saw Jon Richardson ’13 set a new school record in the indoor Heptathlon en-route to a third-place finish at the 2012 ECAC Championships. Richardson was also the runner-up in the Heptathlon at the 2012 NYSCTC Indoor Championships.
Before coming to Rochester, Bennett spent five years on the coaching staff at Elizabethtown College, where he coached the 2007 NCAA Division III Pole Vault Indoor Champion. During Bennett’s tenure at Elizabethtown, the Blue Jays won eight Middle Atlantic Conference (MAC) Team Championships and made 14 NCAA Division III National Championship appearances. Bennett coached athletes to a total of five All-America honors and ten NCAA Division III National Championship qualifiers. Elizabethtown athletes broke 20 school records, won 19 MAC individual championships, and broke three MAC championship meet records. Seventeen student-athletes earned MAC All-Academic honors.
Bennett has directed several highly-successful pole vault clinics during his time at Rochester, after having previously acted as Director of the Northeastern Pennsylvania Pole Vault Clinic in 2006 and an instructor at a the 2004 Elizabethtown College Pole Vault Clinic. He also brings a wealth of administrative and meet management experience, having served as the Meet Director for the 2007 and 2009 MAC Outdoor Championships.
A 2004 graduate of Elizabethtown with a degree in Computer Science, Bennett was a two-year captain and the 2003 outdoor Middle Atlantic Conference (MAC) Pole Vault Champion. He also medaled in the 2004 indoor and outdoor MAC Pole Vault competition. He was a member of three MAC championship teams and the sixth-place team at the 2004 NCAA Division III Outdoor Track & Field Championships.
Bennett is professionally associated with the Pole Vault Safety Certification Board, National Pole Vault Coaches Association, the United States Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association, and USA Track & Field. He lives in Brighton with his wife Ashley, also a former student-athlete at Elizabethtown, and their son Levi.
