CROSS COUNTRY | Coach Goes Cross Country

The coach who oversaw Georgetown’s only cross country national championship in program history is leaving the school.

Women’s cross country Head Coach Chris Miltenberg, the reigning national coach of the year, has accepted a position as Stanford’s director of track and field and head cross country coach.

“[Miltenberg] will be an excellent contributor and leader for a tremendous group of student athletes,” Stanford Athletics Director Bernard Muir, who held the same position at Georgetown from 2005 to 2009, wrote in a press release. “He has had great success at Georgetown, and we expect similar results here at Stanford.”

In five seasons on the Hilltop, Miltenberg (MSB ’03) won national titles in the women’s cross country team and for Emily Infeld in women’s indoor track in 2011 and 2012, respectively, coached 36 All-Americans in track and field and sent six athletes to the 2012 U.S. Olympic trials.

Miltenberg will fill the spot vacated by longtime Stanford Head Coach Edrick Floreal, who left for the head coaching position at Kentucky after spending eight seasons with the Cardinal.

“Stanford has an incredible tradition of excellence that I hope to build on, while at the same time beginning a new chapter and looking for ways to improve and get better,” Miltenberg wrote in the Stanford press release. “I am deeply humbled and honored to be coming to Stanford, but more than anything, I am fired up to get started.”

A former cross country All-American at Georgetown, Miltenberg returned to his alma mater after spending three years as an assistant track and field coach at Columbia while earning his master’s degree in applied physiology.

While Georgetown’s cross country program has found great success in recent years, Stanford’s is undoubtedly more decorated: The Cardinal men and women combined have won nine NCAA championships, six of which have come in the last decade.

Miltenberg’s departure is compounded by the graduation of reigning 3000-meter national champion Emily Infeld, who will continue to compete in track and field this season but has exhausted her eligibility in cross country. Still, Miltenberg was optimistic about the Hoyas’ chances to reprise their 2011 national title.

“Obviously, you don’t replace an Emily Infeld, but I do think if you look at what we’ve done over the years, our strength has really been depth and having great groups that can really run together,” Miltenberg told The Hoya last week. “This team could be as good as any we’ve ever had.”

The Georgetown athletic department had no comment Monday on Miltenberg’s departure but said it will begin a nationwide search for a replacement immediately.