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Led by the coaching of fifth-year head coach Louie Quintana, the Arizona State University cross country program has continued to grow into one of the nation's elite programs. Under Quintana's tutelage, his distance corps not only has fashioned a name for itself in cross country, but its excellence on the track has aided the program's climb among the nation's elite. Quintana, the 2006 USTFCCCA National Assistant Track & Field Coach of the Year for Women's Distances, saw his distance athletes excel in 2007-08 academic year as the Sun Devil program (cross country and track & field) collected four national trophies while his runners accounted for two individual national titles and seven All-America honors. The cross country program, in particular the women, has continued to climb the national standings, including a fourth-place finish for the women at both the 2007 and 2005 NCAA Championships in Terre Haute, Ind. The women, who have competed in the national meet for 10 years in a row, the sixth-longest active streak in the nation, saw a both Jenna Kingma and Ali Kielty earn All-America honors in 2007, marking the third time in his career that two of his runners earned the national award in the same meet. That same day, the men also competed in the national race, finishing in 26th place after entering the meet ranked 30th overall. The success of his runners did not end in the fields of Terre Haute that day as the men stepped up and made huge differences for the track program in the winter. At the NCAA Indoor Championships, Kyle Alcorn put on a show as he brought the distance medley relay back from the middle of the pack to a national runner-up finish and combining with Nectaly Barbosa, Joey Heller and Justin Kremer to earn All-America honors. The next day, Alcorn, ranked 14th heading into the race, came from behind to stun the field and win the national title at 3,000m. His runs helped the men win their first indoor national title and sweep the team crowns as the women repeated. Outdoors, Alcorn continued his strong efforts by winning both the 3,000m steeplechase and the 5,000m run at the Pac-10 Championships before heading to the NCAA Championships where he won the national title in the steeple event. At the same meet, Barbosa earned his first individual All-America honor in the 800m run as the men placed sixth as a team. Heading into the 2007 cross country season, the women's program continued a climb of success that culminated when the Sun Devil women captured a pair of national crowns, securing the 2007 NCAA Indoor and 2007 NCAA Outdoor Championships. In all, Quintana's distance team has been an integral part of eight NCAA trophy finishes in the six championship events, including four national team titles and a pair of fourth-place finishes in cross country. In 2006, the women's team placed 13th overall and also finished second in the Pac-10 for the fifth year in a row and seventh in the last eight, before taking third in the West Region to qualify for the national meet that saw a pair of freshmen scoring in the Top 5 (Ali Kielty 68th and Kari Hardt 88th). The same two freshmen also earned distinction as well with Kielty being selected as the 2006 Pac-10 Newcomer of the Year as the top freshman finisher at the Pac-10 meet while Hardt, the top true-freshman finisher in the Pac-10, placed third at the USA Junior Championships and earned a berth on the USA Junior World Championship team. Quintana also guided a successful senior campaign for Aaron Aguayo as the team's top male runner placed ninth overall at the NCAA Championships to not only earn his second All-America honor, but also place the highest of any male in program history at the meet and the second highest of any Sun Devil behind Lisa Aguilera's fifth-place showing at the 2000 event. Aguayo helped lead the men to a fourth-place showing at the conference level while placing fourth individually before earning all-region accolades as the second-place finisher. On the track in 2007, the Sun Devils made history on both sides. Along with its two NCAA team titles, the women saw Amy Hastings, who set the American collegiate indoor 5,000m record (15:30.17) earn three All-America honors (indoor 3,000m & 5,000m runs and outdoor 10,000m run) to tie her with Olympian Maicel Malone for the most All-America honors in a career at ASU with 10 total. On the men's side, both Aguayo and Kyle Alcorn earned All-America honors in the 3,000m steeplechase outdoors while Aguayo earned the distinction in the indoor 3,000m run as well. Aguayo also made history at the Pac-10 Championships in Eugene, Ore., as he won the steeplechase for the fourth time in a row, making him just the 11th student-athlete in the history of the conference to win the same event four times. Nationally and internationally, Aguayo would go on to finish second at the USA Championships in a school-record time of 8:27.01 and earn a berth into the IAAF World Championships in Osaka, Japan. Aguayo later went on to run 8:20.34 at a meet in Belgium to lower his personal best time. Former Sun Devil Lisa Galaviz (Aguilera), placed fourth at the USA Championships in the steeplechase before heading over seas where she clocked a time of 9:28.75 at the same Belgium meet Aguayo ran in. Her time in Belgium broke the American record by over four seconds as she turned in an over-10 second personal best. During his time in Tempe, Quintana has coached nine different student-athletes (five women and four men) to a total of 28 All-America honors, including a school-record-tying 10 career honors for Hastings and seven career accolades for Aguayo, both of which earned three All-America awards during their senior campaigns. In 2006, he coached Hastings and Victoria Jackson to individual national titles with Hastings winning the 2006 NCAA Indoor 5,000m run and Jackson taking the 2006 NCAA Outdoor 10,000m run. Along with Aguayo's historic four Pac-10 steeplechase championships, Quintana's distance runners have claimed 11 individual Pac-10 titles, including Hastings' 2004 cross country championship, making her the only Sun Devil (male and female) to win the conference meet. Academically, Quintana's runners have also excelled as the 2006-07 group accounted for 12 Academic All-Pac-10 Cross Country and 16 Academic All-Pac-10 Track & Field honors while securing six National Academic awards from the USTFCCCA. During his tenure, Quintana's student-athletes have accumulated 62 academic honors from the Pac-10 Conference (29 in cross country and 33 in track & field) and seven ESPN The Magazine Academic All-District VIII honors (three in cross country and four in track & field). In 2006, Jackson also was named the USTFCCCA Female Scholar-Athlete of the Year for Indoor Track & Field. Quintana has not limited himself to grooming athletes for success during and after college. Following the 2006-07 academic year, a pair of Quintana's graduate assistants took full-time positions at other institutions. Rhonda Riley was hired on as the assistant women's cross country and assistant track & field coach at Vanderbilt University while Jeremy Rasmussen, a former Sun Devil student-athlete, was hired as the head women's cross country and assistant track & field coach at Illinois. During his competitive career at Villanova University, he captained the Wildcat squad to a pair of Top 10 finishes, placing fourth in 1992 and ninth in 1994 at the NCAA Championships. Individually, he claimed three NCAA Cross Country All-America certificates with finishes of 16th, 14th, and 4th. Quintana also qualified for four indoor and outdoor NCAA Track and Field Championships as well as the 1992 United States Olympic Trials. In 1993, he was named Male Outstanding Performer at the prestigious Penn Relays and, for his efforts, made the cover of the July 1993 issue of Track and Field News. As a competitor, Quintana clocked personal-best times of 1:46.3 (800m), 3:40.37 (1,500m), 7:58.85 (3,000m) and 13:53.62 (5,000m). In all, Quintana garnered nine All-America awards during his career on the Main Line. He earned his bachelor's degree in History from VU in 1996 and recently completed his Master's degree in Education Curriculum and Instruction with a major in Language and Literacy from ASU. A standout in high school, he was the National Foot Locker Championship having won in 1990. Quintana and his wife, Andi, currently reside in Avondale with their daughter, Ellie, and son, Charlie.
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