Cross Country and Track & Field
Coaching

Roger Erricker
Head Coach
20th Season; Frostburg State, '79
rerricker@towson.edu

Entering his 20th season at the helm of Towson University's men's and women's cross country programs, Roger Erricker is one of the busiest college coaches anywhere. In addition to running the women's cross country program, he is the head coach of the Tiger women’s track and field program. In 2004, Towson dropped the men's track and Cross Country programs.
Coach Erricker is also one of the most experienced coaches around. Of Towson University’s 16 head coaches, he has the third longest tenure. Only Coach Frank Olszewski (24 years) of the men’s soccer program and Coach Dick Filbert (23 years) of the gymnastics team have been head coaches at Towson for a longer time.
Coach Erricker will be guiding the Tigers into their second season of Colonial Athletic Association competition. Last year, the Tiger cross country teams were the first Towson teams to compete in a CAA Championship. The Tiger men’s team finished eighth in the CAA Meet while the women’s squad ran seventh.
Prior to joining the CAA, Erricker led the Tigers in six seasons of America East competition. In 1999, he coached the women's team to its best finish in the nine-team conference yet, finishing fifth, while the men's team took sixth.
The Tigers also competed for three years in the Big South Conference, in which both teams fared well. The highlight of their three years of competition in the Big South was the women's team's second place finish in 1992.
The 1999 men's team was one of Erricker's most successful men's teams yet. With a 33-20 record, the Tigers broke the single season record for wins, a record that had been broken the previous season when the team went 25-4. The Tigers finished first in four of their five regular season meets, including wins at the Towson Invitational, the Delaware Invitational, a dual meet against Richmond, and the Maryland College State Meet. They finished second at the Baltimore Metro meet, which they had won in 1997 and 1996.
Erricker's women's team enjoyed similar success in 1999, going 30-20 while picking up four first-place finishes. The Tigers grabbed regular season championships at the Baltimore Meet, the Towson Invitational, a dual meet against Richmond, and the Maryland Colleges State Meet.

Through the years Erricker has coached the Tigers in four different leagues. In 1991, he coached his only conference cross country champion when Vikki Benhardt won the East Coast Conference championship. He came extremely close to having another conference champion in 1998 when Paul Bourg missed winning the America East championship by one second and finished second. In 1992, Benhardt and Allison Thomson were named to the All-Big South team.
Erricker came to Towson after a successful stint at Howard High School in Howard County. A history teacher for four years, he also coached junior varsity football and track for the Lions. He coached the track team to the 1985 outdoor state championship.
A native of Gaithersburg, Md., Erricker was an outstanding track and field performer for Frostburg State College. A 1979 graduate of Frostburg with a B.S. in social science and history, he was the 1978 Mason-Dixon Conference high jump champion. He also helped the Bobcats win back-to-back Mason-Dixon titles. In 1979, he was a student assistant coach for the Frostburg track and field program.
He and his wife, Elizabeth, reside in the Overlea section of Baltimore, just minutes from the Towson campus.

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Rebecca DuRivage Jacobs

Jumps Hurdles Sprints Coach

Alma Mater: Towson '06
Bio:
Rebecca is a newcomer to the Tiger coaching staff, but a familiar face in the program. A 2006 Towson graduate, she competed all four years as an undergraduate setting several records during her career.

In her first year as an assistant coach, Rebecca is working primarily with the jumps for both the indoor and outdoor track programs. As a passionate student of the sport, Rebecca brings a fresh perspective and new initiative to the jumps program at Towson.

Rebecca competed as part of the Towson Track and Field team for four years. Specializing in the horizontal jumps, Rebecca held both the long and triple jump school records. Her 40'-8.75" is still the best in the outdoor triple jump.

Rebecca finished her final season with All-East recognition in the triple jump at the ECAC Meet and a fourth place finish at the Colonial Athletic Association Championships in the heptathlon. Rebecca also competed for the Towson Swimming & Diving program early in her Towson athletics career.

Away from the Johnny Unitas Stadium track, Rebecca is the Help Desk Representative for the Library & Information Services department at the nearby K-12 institution, the Friends School of Baltimore. Still an avid runner, she enjoys post-collegiate competition in the field events as well as the occasional 5K.

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Dr. James Bell

Assistant Coach
Miami-Ohio, '64 U. of Illinois '71

Jim Bell has been involved in some capacity with the Towson program for 16 years. He brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to theTiger team.
Jim’s two sons, Rick and Andy, competed for the Tiger cross country and track teams from 1989 to 1995. Rick graduated from Towson in 1993 while Andy is a 1995 Towson graduate.

Bell served as a volunteer assistant coach during the 1995-1996 season. He also has been the Meet Director of the Redbrook Invitational in Ashtabula Ohio.
   When he was in college, Jim ran cross country and track at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. At Miami, he had the opportunity to be teammates with Olympians and world record holders Bob Schul and Jack Batcheler. He competed at the NCAA National Cross Country Championships as a junior and senior at Miami.
In track, he competed in the 800-meter and one-mile events and was also a member of the one-mile relay team. When he graduated, he held the school record in the 1000-yard indoor run.
After graduating from Miami with a degree in Biology, Jim earned a Doctorate in Pharmacology from the University of Illinois College of Medicine in Chicago. He taught pharmacology to medical students at Illinois for one year.Following his tenure at Uof I, he became a research electrophysiologist for the National Institute on Drug Abuse in Lexington, Kentucky.Bell became a resident of Maryland when the NIDA moved to Baltimore in 1984.
   A life-long fan of track and field, Jim returned to his part-time coaching position at Towson following his retirement from his government job in 2002. Jim’s duties at Towson include planning and executing the training of the middle distance runners. Under his tutelage, many have gained conference honors as well as school records and marks in the upper echelon of Tiger performances. Additionally Jim produces edited highlight films of the cross country and track and field competitions.

Dr. John Govern
Throws Coach Albright '84
jgovern@towson.edu

John serves as the Throws Coach for both the indoor and outdoor track programs. A Psychology professor at the University since 1989, he graduated Summa Cum Laude from Albright University with a Bachelor's degree in Psychology.
During his four-year career at Albright, John threw the shot, discus and javelin while also competing in the 400-meter run and the 4x400 meter relay. A team captain his senior year, his discus record at Albright stood for 13 years. He was the recipient of the Eugene Shirk Award as outstanding senior scholar-athlete.
While studying at Temple for his Doctorate in Social Psychology, John was a graduate student member of the Owls Powerlifting club team. He threw competitively in the Philadelphia area before accepting his faculty position at Towson in 1989.