Rick Wemple, who served the past seven years as women's cross country/distance coach at Brown University in Providence, R.I., is in his first season as assistant men's and women's track and field coach at Lewis University.

Wemple, who also is head coach of the Flyers' men's and women's cross country teams, coaches the distance and middle-distance runners.

Wemple made an immediate impact in his first season at Brown. The cross country team was runner-up at the Heptagonal League Championship after finishing fifth the previous year and posted an impressive fourth-place showing, up seven spots from the previous season, at the NCAA Regional Championship. On the track, the middle-distance and distance runners doubled their scoring output from the previous year, and the team won both indoor and outdoor Heptagonal League titles.

Wemple led the 1999 cross country team, led by individual champion Sara Tindall, to the Heptagonal League crown, giving Brown its first team and individual cross country champions. The Bears went on to finish ninth at the NCAA Championship in their first national appearance, setting the stage for two more NCAA berths in 2000 and 2001. Tindall repeated as conference champion in 2000 and earned All-America status with a 19th-place finish at the NCAA Championship.

In track and field, Wemple coached seven individual and relay Heptagonal League champions, and six individual and two relay school records were set during his tenure. The 4x800-meter relay team in particular found success under his guidance, setting the school record four consecutive years (2002-05) with four different combinations of athletes. The middle-distance squad was a strength of the track and field team and had its best showing in 2004 with four Heptagonal titles.

Off the track, all of Wemple's athletes graduated, and three of his cross country teams earned NCAA All-Academic with Distinction recognition.

Wemple is a 1992 graduate of Yale University, where he majored in biology and was a 1991 All-American in cross country (ninth place). A 10-time All-Ivy athlete in cross country and track, he won six Heptagonal titles in track and still holds the Heptagonal Championship record of 3:42.09 in the outdoor 1500 meters.

Wemple also earned a master's degree in exercise science from The Ohio State University while continuing to compete in post-collegiate events. Before coming to Brown, he was a volunteer assistant coach at Yale and worked as a research assistant in an exercise physiology lab where he participated in projects concerning temperature regulation and body fluid balance.

Wemple's coaching philosophy is to approach each athlete as an individual when designing training programs while emphasizing team unity for competition. He also stresses the four-year development of an athlete rather than pushing youngsters to be superstars at the risk of injury and burnout. That philosophy paid big dividends at Brown, where new personal bests were set by athletes of all abilities at every meet, and many of Wemple's graduates continued to run after college.