Alumni
Athletics
Portland Magazine
October 26, 2019
HIRED TO LEAD UP’S cross country program 30 years ago at all of 26 years old, Rob Conner ’86 has put Pilot men’s and women’s running teams on the map—locally and nationally—and has proven his mettle in every manner that counts. His peers see it too—he has been named West Region Coach of the Year six times.
Conner’s Pilot men boast three NCAA National Championship podium finishes in the past five years, with back-to-back finishes in 2017 (second place) and 2018 (third place). Those are national wins, people, and the 2019 Pilot squad has been picked to finish second at the 2019 championships on November 1 in Los Angeles. Nineteen Conner squads have made it to the NCAA Championships, with nine Top Ten finishes, and he has led his teams to 34 WCC cross country titles.
His years with the women’s squad were impressive too (he handed the baton to Ian Soloff ’95 in 2002): 12 conference titles in 13 years, a sixth place finish at the 1993 NCAA West Regionals, and a seventh place finish in 1994. Nicole Karr ’96 earned Women’s Cross Country All-Academic honors in 1994 and was named to the West Coast Conference Hall of Honor in 2018.
Many of Conner’s charges have gone on to take the distance running world by storm: Uli Steidl ’96 won the Boston Marathon master’s division in 2012 and 2014; Derek Mandell ’08 and Josh Illustre ’16 competed in the Summer Olympics for Guam; Scott Fauble ’15 was the top US finisher and placed seventh overall at the 2019 Boston Marathon; Tayte Pollman ’18, Nick Hauger ’18, and Woody Kincaid ’18 are running professionally. And speaking of Woody Kincaid: Conner was there to witness Woody’s 12:58:10 finish in the 5000m at Nike’s Michael Johnson Track on September 11, 2019, which makes Woody the fifth fastest man in U.S. running history.
Coaching careers can be said to live and die by the numbers, and Rob Conner certainly has numbers on his side, but his contributions and influence on campus range much more widely than simple wins and losses. He’s a Pilot through and through, an unwavering advocate, taskmaster, and father figure for his runners, and an affable, engaging colleague to athletics staff and UP employees alike. For more than 30 years now he’s lived out the UP mission in every way imaginable, and we thank him with all our hearts.
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