BERKELEY – Director of Track & Field/Cross Country Robyne Johnson has started filling out her inaugural staff for the 2019-20 season as she announced her first three additions on Friday. Assistant Coaches Chas Davis and Mohamad Saatara will be retained from last year's staff and Dan Lefever becomes the first new addition to the staff.
 
Lefever will join the Bears as the coach for vertical jumps, pole vault and multis athletes. Saatara will continue coaching the Bears' throwers. Davis will retain his title as the assistant coach for distances and the associate recruiting coordinator. In addition to her duties as director, Johnson will coach the horizontal jumps.
 
Lefever will join Cal after spending last year on Johnson's staff at Boston University. Prior to joining the Terriers, Lefever was a volunteer assistant coach at Stanford. He also served 14 years on the staff at Missouri rising from a volunteer to an assistant and eventually the associate head coach.
 
"I am excited to announce that Dan will be joining our program," Director of Track & Field/Cross Country Robyne Johnson said. "He's extremely qualified, having worked at several power five schools. He's a respectable coach and more importantly a respectable person. In our one year together, he led a number of athletes to PR's. He also coached conference champions and led walk-ons to score at the conference meet, when they had never done that before. He's always exploring how to get better and I think he will be a great fit in Berkeley. I am looking forward to continuing to work with him."
 
In his one season working with Johnson at BU, Lefever helped Ava Gruzen to a silver medal in the heptathlon during the conference outdoor championship. On the men's side Jason Biesma took third place in the decathlon and second in the heptathlon at the Patriot League Championships.
 
In his lone season at Stanford, Lefever helped Kaitlyn Merritt and Erika Malaspina accomplish something that had never been done in school history. The two Cardinal women's pole vaulters both qualified for the NCAA Championships after taking second and third at the Pac-12 Championships (Cal graduate Lauren Martinez won the event).
 
"I am really excited to join the staff, Cal has always been a dream school for me," Lefever said. "There is a tremendous amount of history with the Cal track & field program and I am excited to be part of that and to help push the program forward. I love the experience that Robyne brings from her many years at the highest levels of track & field and I appreciate the opportunity from her, Athletic Director Jim Knowlton and Assistant Athletics Director Justin Panarese in giving me this opportunity."
 
During his tenure at Missouri, Lefever contributed to 26 First-Team All-Americans, 10 Big 12 Conference champions, 37 NCAA Participants, 72 conference scorers, and 17 Missouri school records across the jumps, pole vault and multis events.
 
In his final year at Missouri, Lefever guided pole vaulters Alyssa Applebee (4.22m/13-10) and Matt Ludwig (5.46m/17-10) to school records and first and second team All-America performances, respectively. Applebee took seventh in the country and was a scorer at both SEC Indoors and Outdoors. Ludwig was the highest placing freshman male vaulter in the country at the outdoor 2016 NCAA championships as he took 10th place. He also claimed third at the SEC Outdoor Championships and sixth at the Indoor Championships.
 
Lefever was also instrumental in the success of Katrine Haarklau. Haarklau collected four All-American honors in the pole vault. An Outdoor NCAA Championships qualifier for each of her four years, Haarklau was 15th in 2012, fifth in 2013, sixth in 2014 and 12th in 2015. Additionally, in 2013, she broke the school record in the outdoor pole vault (4.35m/14-3.25) and Javelin (49.56/162-7). Haarklau was also a Missouri Top Ten performer in the pentathlon (3699) and heptathlon (5374).
 
Under Lefever's leadership, Morgan Whitson earned Second Team All-America honors; finishing 16th with a high jump of 1.77m/5-9.75. Additionally, Whitson held Missouri top-10 marks in the pentathlon (3828) and heptathlon (5273). Pole vaulter Jennifer Bennett (13-7) also took home a school record, a Big 12 championship, and first team All-America honors.

Brian Hancock, Lars Rise and Nick Adcock had a fantastic run at the conference, NCAA, and International levels. Included among the accolades were 13 First Team All-American honors, an NCAA Heptathlon Runner-Up, 10 Big 12 Champion/Runner-up performances, 20 All-Big 12 recognitions, six school records, a Big 12 Indoor Championship Meet record, Midwest Regional Athlete of the Year, USATF junior decathlon champion, USATF indoor heptathlon champion, and Norwegian heptathlon national record (5902). Additionally, Adcock finished no lower than fifth at any NCAA competition and together with Lars Rise scored 52 points in eight NCAA championships. Brian Hancock became the first male Tiger in 50 years to be named an All-American in the pole vault.
 
Lefever started at Missouri in 2002 and was promoted to a full-time assistant coach in the fall of 2005. He was named Associate Head Coach of the Missouri program in 2009 and remained in that spot until 2016. Lefever was also selected to coach the USA Track and Field Thorpe Cup Decathlon team in 2011.
 
A graduate of Nebraska Wesleyan University in 2000, Lefever studied exercise science and psychology. While at NWU, Lefever competed in the pole vault where he was competitive at the conference and national level.  He also started a Ph.D. in Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis with emphasis in sport psychology at Missouri and holds a Master's degree in counseling psychology from Boston College.
 
In addition to adding Lefever to the staff, Cal will also be retaining Saatara and Davis on the staff. Both Saatara and Davis will enter their seventh year on staff.  
 
Saatara coached Camryn Rogers to the NCAA National Championship this past year. Rogers set the school record, Canadian U23 record and recorded the seventh-best mark in the country and second-best mark in Pac-12 history when she threw 71.50m/234-7 in the hammer throw. The mark was the fourth-best in Canadian history and helped Rogers win the most competitive hammer event in NCAA history as second-eighth place all set a new all-time best mark for that position. Rogers also won the Pac-12 Championship in the event and claimed the weight throw crown at the MPSF Championships during indoor season. Last summer, Rogers won the 2018 U20 world championship in the hammer throw, collecting the first world championship at any level for a member of the Cal Track & Field program.    
 
"Retaining Mo was an easy decision; he's a very good coach and led Camryn to a national championship this year," Johnson said. "His contributions to the program have proven to be immeasurable, the work he has done to improve our throwing program made it an easy decision to keep him on staff moving forward."
 
This past season, Silviu Bocancea was a second-team All-American after finishing ninth in the men's hammer. This was the second straight year that Bocancea earned those honors. Iffy Joyner was an honorable mention All-American in the discus in 2019 and took silver for the United States at the 2019 NACAC U23 Championships. Chrissy Glasmann set a school record in the javelin at 50.29m/165-0. McKay Johnson was named a First Team All-American during the indoor season as he took eighth place at the NCAA Championship for the second straight year. Johnson set Cal's school record in the shot put at 20.47m/67-2.00. In 2018, Johnson qualified for the NCAA Outdoor Championship in both the shot put and the discus.
 
Since Saatara joined the Bears, his student-athletes have notched 23 (11 men, 12 women) appearances on the school's all-time outdoor top-10 list in the eight events he coaches. He has also coached 11 USTFCCCA All-American performances and four school records.  
 
Davis has worked with the distance corps throughout his time at Cal. He helped the women's cross country team to a 22nd-place finish at the NCAA Championship in 2017, marking their first team appearance in the competition in the past six years. Knights and Brie Oakley both earned USTFCCCA All-American honors as they finished in the top 40. Knights earned two All-American honors in cross country and twice an All-American during track. Oakley was named Pac-12 Cross Country Freshman of the Year and will be a redshirt sophomore this fall.

"As part of the process, I spoke with all of the coaches on last year's staff," Johnson said. "Speaking with Chas proved that he is well-versed in everything that goes on at Cal. He loves it here and wants to be involved in taking us to the next level. He has proven to be a quality distance coach throughout his career and I look forward to working with him."
 
Davis also coached Garrett Corcroan throughout his career as the recent graduate became the first Bear to qualify for the NCAA Cross Country Championship four times, doing so twice with the team and twice as an individual. In his first season at Cal, Davis coached Kelsey Santisteban to a 10th-place finish at the NCAA Cross Country Championships. She also took third at the Pac-12 Championships. On the track, Santisteban finished in second place in the 10,000m at the Pac-12 Championships and qualified for the NCAA Championships.
 
Thomas Joyce was another distance standout as he set the school record in the 1500m and was a two-time All-American in the event. He appeared at five NCAA Championships in his career including twice during cross country. Trent Brendel made three appearances at the cross country national championship and closed his career with a silver medal in the 10,000m at the Pac-12 Championships in 2017.
 
With Davis, Saatara and Lefever on staff, Johnson will look to fill out the remaining two spots on staff in the coming weeks.