Head Coach

Pete Jennings '99
EMAIL | 267-405-7548

Pete Jennings took over as head coach of the boys Track & Field team in 2005, and the Cross Country team in 2007. He has coached his athletes to fifteen indoor state championship appearances, six All-State performances, and eight recognitions as All-American. In 2005, Coach Jennings led the 4x800 team to a second-place finish at the  Nike Indoor Nationals. 

Coach Jennings graduated from GA in 1999 and was captain of his cross country and track teams. He ran Division I cross country and track for four years at the University of Richmond. In his senior year, Coach Jennings was selected to two Atlantic-10 All-Conference teams, and was named captain and team MVP.

Assistant Coaches

Tom Taft (spring track)
EMAIL | 267-405-7224

Tom Taft started coaching track at GA in 1993. An expert on the technical side of every event on the track or in the field, Mr. Taft is an accomplished athlete in his own right. Coach Taft competed for Yale University as a decathlete, and trained for several years for the Olympic Trials. He is a regular competitor in the USA Masters Track & Field Championships, and is meet director for the Summer Germantown Academy All Comers Meet series.

Matt Notary (XC & spring track)
EMAIL | 267-405-7463

Matt Notary joined the coaching staff in 2007. Coach Notary ran both cross country and track for Princeton University, where he specialized in the 800 Meter Run. His personal best of 1:52.64 makes him one of the top 15 performers ALL TIME in the Heptagonal Championships.

Dion Lehman (winter track head coach, spring track asst)

Dion Lehman started coaching in 2012 following a very successful collegiate career at Princeton University. Coach Lehman was captain of his team in his senior year and earned a silver medal in the long jump at the Ivy League Championships. Now the head coach in the winter season, Coach Lehman has helped revitalize the winter track program.

Mimi McCloskey (spring track)

Mimi McCloskey was a stand out runner for Hatboro Horsham, then for Penn State, and since leaving her competitive career has been an outstanding youth track coach, organizing CYO track programs, coordinating area championship meets, and now, lending her expertise to Germantown Academy's athletes.

Middle School Coaches

Matt Hess  (spring track)
 
Deb Mersky (spring track)
EMAIL | 267-405-7448
    
Diane Goldstein (XC)
EMAIL | 267-405-7296
    
Joe Xiong (XC)
EMAIL | 267-405-7439

Our teams are made up of young men and women who are committed to putting in the work and to building a team that finds success and progress in winning and losing. We work with individuals who run for all three seasons and those who join one or two teams during the year. This combination brings together wide varieties of talents and approaches to competition, all of which are incorporated into our yearly planning and goal-setting. We encourage anyone with an interest in competition and improving themselves as an athlete to join our teams.

FACILITY

We focus on hard work based on achievable goals that push each athlete beyond what they believe they are capable of. There is a great benefit to finding one's personal limits, and recognizing that these can be stretched, if the decision is made to stretch them. One of the principle elements of everything we do is goal-setting. At the outset of each season and then several times during the competition phase of training, athletes and coaches will discuss specific goals individually and as a group. We believe it is important that these goals be shared, recognized and discussed by the team. In addition to individual goals, the coaches and the team create a series of goals for the season. These become the basis for our training schedules and our focus.

GA has seen athletes improve over the course of the year and the course of their careers as members of the program. All through the Patriot XC/Track Program, our athletes are encouraged and supported along their way to greater performances in the classroom, on the trails and the track. Those who choose to commit to the program, whether for one season or the year, leave with pride for their successes as individuals and as members of a team, and with the strength gained from pushing past failures. Ultimately, it is our goal for our athletes to leave the program prepared for what is next in their lives.

All-Americans

Penn Relays Qualifiers

Cross Country State Champions -

2002, 2003, 2004

Winter Track (Indoors) -

8 All-Americans
7 State Medalists
15 State Qualifiers

Spring Track (Outdoors) -

19 New School Records Since 2005

 OUTDOOR TRACK Individual School Records

Relay School Records

Many thanks to Hank Korth and Peter Hobbs for these great photos:

Photos

Photos

Started in 1895, The Penn Relays has hosted more athletes of all competitive levels than any other track meet in the world. More than 425 races make up the three-day competition with more than 10,000 athletes from all over the country and the world converging on Penn's Franklin Field.

Germantown Academy first participated in the relays in 1910 and competes every year in the 4x400 and the 4x100. The Inter-Ac 4x400 Meter Relay is the oldest event in the carnival and always a highlight of the parade of high school boys events on Saturday. For many years, Philadelphia's favorite track enthusiast, Bill Cosby, started the race.

In 2005, GA athletes also participated in the prestigious 4x800 - which they qualified for thanks to their second-place finish at Nike Indoor Nationals. Their time was the 9th fastest in the US. Additionally, GA's team of Elliot Rhodes, Myron Turner, Stuart Udis, and Yeremiah Shemuale won the 2005 Inter-Ac 4x400.

In 2006, GA's Alex Holcombe became the first Patriot athlete to compete in an individual event in recent memory when he made the discus competition. Alex also qualified for the discus in 2007, thanks to his school record throw of 167-6.

In 2011, GA's Beau Whitman qualified in the Pole Vault thanks to his school-record jump of 15-0, which also earned him the 2011 PTFCA Indoor State Championship.

2011 First Team All Inter-Ac
Jared Whitman (Inter-Ac Champion in Pole Vault)

2011 Second Team All Inter-Ac
Matt Miller (Pole Vault

Ben Ritz '13 breaks GA's 27-year-old mile record, running 4:24.53 at the Henderson Invitational
The record had previously been held by GA Hall of Famer Kyle Rankin '84

4x1600M Relay Team Breaks School Record
Hirsh Shah '11, Carter Skeel '11, Joe Korth '12, and Ben Ritz '13 ran 18:59.11 to best the previous mark, set in 2002