In his time as a track and field and cross country coach, Robert Radnoti has seen runaway victories and blazing times.
The Pepperdine Waves coach of 14 seasons said last week he is expecting the members of Pepperdine’s men’s and women’s track squads to run some fleet-footed times during the 2019 season, and through two meets the running Waves haven’t disappointed.
Three Pepperdine athletes set individual records for the university’s women’s indoor track team last weekend at a meet in Idaho, and one hurdler set a Wave record last month at a competition in New Mexico.
Radnoti said the Waves are in the midst of an amazing season. “Every single record is going to be broken,” said Radnoti. “That is my goal. That is the team’s goal. Every single one is achievable.”
In between the record-setting runs, Radnoti, Pepperdine’s head coach since the 2006-07 season, announced he is retiring from coaching to work full time with Liv., a lifestyle company that aids people in accomplishing bucket list travel experiences.
The former collegiate runner at the University of Colorado and CIF-winning running coach has worked with Liv. in a part-time role since the beginning of January but feels the time for him to sprint into an expanded role with the company is approaching. Radnoti, also a life coach, said creating memorable travel experiences for customers is something he will enjoy.
“Truthfully, it’s something I have always done in my coaching, Radnoti said. “It’s something I pride myself on. Creating incredible experiences for our athletes. It’s like this company was built for me.”
Waves sophomore sprinter and hurdler Caila Tongco, sophomore distance runner Abbey Meck and junior sprinter and hurdler Tayla Holenstein all had record performances at the Feb. 1-2 Jackson’s/Nike Boise Indoor Invitational in Idaho
Tongco broke her own school record in the 60-meter hurdles for the second consecutive meet. The Washington native ran the event in 8.96 seconds in the preliminaries before finishing third overall in the finals. Tongco ran the race 9.21 seconds at the Waves first meet of the season, the Jan. 18-19 Martin Luther King Jr. Invitational in New Mexico. That time surpassed the school record she set during her freshman year.
Tongco also finished second in the 60-meter dash at the Idaho meet. Her time of 7.89 was less then two-tenths off the Pepperdine record.
Meck broke the team record in the 5,000-meter with a time of 18:58.29. She finished 13th in the mile with a time of 5:22.09, about two seconds off her own Waves record. Holenstein’s time of 2:23.95 in the 800-meter placed her in eighth place and beat out a three-year-old school record in the race.
Additionally, juniors Cori Persinger and Grace Palmer, Meck and freshman Riley Wright set a Waves record in the distance medley relay with a time of 12:54.87.
Radnoti said he is proud of all the Waves.
“This was a really good meet for us,” he said, according to a Waves press release, “with four school records. This was a good meet for us with comparable competition.”
Radnoti, a Las Vegas native, has been in the running world a long time. After running in college and graduating, he took a job as a chemical engineer for Exxon Mobil in the early 1980s. He started a corporate track team while working for the company that competed in events like the Corporate Cup Relays. Then in 1998, he was hired as the running coach at Thousand Oaks High School after reading about the job opening in a newspaper. Radnoti left Exxon to coach, but still worked as a consultant for another oil company.
Radnoti coached at Thousand Oaks for eight years and won a state title in 2005 before being hired as an assistant coach for Pepperdine’s women’s track team. When the first-year team’s head coach Richard Kampman got sick, Radnoti led the team for the rest of the 2006 season. Kampman retired at the end of the campaign, and Radnoti was hired as the Waves track and cross country team’s head coach. He brought men’s track back to Pepperdine in 2008 and, eight years later, fielded a women’s indoor track team.
During Radnoti’s tenure, six cross country runners have been named to the All-West Coast Conference first team and athletes have earned WCC All-Academic honors 91 times and WCC Commissioner’s Honor Roll status 254 times.
The coach is proud of the fact that the cross country and track athletes have performed well in the classroom and after graduation gone onto successful careers.
“It’s been wonderful to be a part of that,” he said.
Pepperdine Athletic Director Dr. Steve Potts wished Radnoti great success in the future.
“He has shown an extraordinary level of commitment to, and an uncommon sense of caring for, all his student-athletes,” Potts said in a press release.
Pepperdine will participate in the Husky Invitational in Washington on Friday and Saturday. The squad will compete in the UC Santa Barbara/Westmount meet in Santa Barbara on Feb. 16. Then, there are 12 more meets before the Waves’ season closes at the Occidental Invitational on May 4 in Los Angeles.
Radnoti said his final season coaching is about love and respect.
“I’m going to go out and have fun and make sure the team has fun,” he said. “A few of our record holders have returned this season and they are stronger and faster.”
Radnoti said Pepperdine’s running programs are on the upswing and hopes that it continues under whoever the next coach will be. He said his new job is too good of an opportunity to pass up but noted that deciding to leave the Waves was a tough decision because of his love for the athletes.
“I get to coach the greatest athletes,” Radnoti said. “I am their coach and mentor for life.”