Portions of this release were taken from Cal Poly Athletics and USTFCCCA
New Orleans, La. -- Cal Poly alum Greg Kraft and CSUN alum Art Venegas were two of six coaches that were inducted into the United States Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) Coaches Hall of Fame as part of its 2022 class.
Kraft competed on the Cal Poly track and field team for three years as a high jumper, before graduating with a bachelor's degree in physical education in 1978. Kraft started his 40-year coaching career at Cal Poly in 1979-80 as a graduate assistant under legendary Mustang coach Steve Miller.
After leaving Cal Poly, Kraft spent a year on Indiana State's staff before reuniting with Miller at Kansas State to serve as an assistant coach for the Wildcats from 1981-85. He was an assistant coach at Virginia for four years prior to becoming the head coach at South Carolina in 1989.
In 1996, Kraft took over the program at Arizona State and served as the director of track & field and cross country for 23 years, leading the Sun Devils to unprecedented success during his tenure, including four NCAA team titles across the 2007 and 2008 indoor and outdoor track seasons.
Kraft was a four-time USTFCCCA Coach of the Year and three-time Pac-10 Coach of the Year at Arizona State. At least one Sun Devil won an NCAA individual title in 13 of Kraft's last 16 years as director, and Sun Devils win 38 national titles, earn 21 Olympic berths and take home more than 300 All-America honors since 1998.
Venegas was an All-American thrower at CSUN before getting into coaching, which almost didn’t happen. Originally planning to go to law school after double majoring in political science and Spanish, Venegas' focus shifted to the sport after he improved so much as a sophomore at CSUN.
When former Matador assistant Frank Carl left the program after the 1975 outdoor season, Carl suggested to head coach Cliff Abel that Venegas take over the reins of the event group. The rest is history.
Venegas led CSUN throwers to three NCAA titles and nine All-America honors from 1976 to 1979. Steve Albright (1976, shot put), Norman Finke (1979, hammer) and Joe Straub (1979, discus) all won individual titles under Venegas’ direction and the Matadors finished third at the 1979 NCAA Division II Outdoor Track & Field Championships largely due to their throwers.
After a brief two-year stint at Long Beach State, Venegas made his way to UCLA in 1982. Venegas created a juggernaut of a throws program with the Bruins, one that would decimate the collegiate ranks over the next 28 years.
Under Venegas’ leadership, UCLA won 33 NCAA titles, more than 175 All-America honors and 67 conference crowns in throwing events. The Bruins had a thrower on top of the podium at the NCAA Indoor or Outdoor Championships in all but four years from 1990-2002. There were four years during that span in which the Bruins double-dipped with at least one male athlete and one female athlete winning NCAA titles in the same year (1991, 1993, 1995 and 1996). There are 18 instances of programs scoring four athletes in an event at the NCAA Championships as of 2021. Narrow it down even further, only seven of those 18 instances happened in throwing events in nearly 100 years. Of which, three belonged to UCLA with Venegas at the helm.
After UCLA, Venegas continued coaching medal-winning throwers at the elite level and eventually retired from the profession after a stint as the Performance Consultant to the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista, California.
Venegas’ legacy will endure, as many of his former athletes – like Brian Blutreich, Don Babbitt, David Dumble and John Frazier, among others – have carried on the championship and record-breaking tradition as coaches.