Full Circle - Feature
Robyne Johnson enters her seventh season as Director of Track & Field/Cross Country at Cal in 2025-26.
Johnson is the 14th coach to be charged with leading either the men’s or women’s track & field programs (ninth men’s coach/ninth women’s coach) at Cal. She is the fourth Golden Bear coach to be named Director of Track & Field/Cross Country for both programs and the first female to do so. Johnson becomes the seventh female to be named Director of Track & Field/Cross Country at a Power Five program. Johnson brings elite coaching experience and years of working at rigorous academic institutions back to her hometown. She grew up in Oakland and attended Berkeley High School, down the street from Cal’s campus.
An active leader in the track and field community, Johnson has served in numerous leadership positions. She spent five years on the NCAA Division I Track and Field Committee, where she was one of 13 members who provided a legislative agenda for cross country and track and field. She has also served on the jury of appeals for the America East Conference and the IC4A games committee. She has also been an assistant coach for two Team USA Olympic squads, working with the multi-events and jumps in 2016 at Rio and 2021 in Tokyo.
As a first-year member of the ACC in 2025, Cal’s track & field team qualified eight athletes to the NCAA Outdoor Championships and four to the Indoor Championships, collecting a total of four First-Team and four Second-Team All-America nods. Capping off his second-consecutive world-record-setting season, Mykolas Alekna claimed second place in the men’s discus and was named the NCAA West Region Men’s Field Athlete of the Year as well as a semifinalist for The Bowerman. At the ACC Indoor Championships, Cal claimed two event titles (David Foster, 60m; Giavonna Meeks, weight throw) as well as two additional podium finishes; at the Outdoor Championships, two Bears (Alekna, discus; Meeks, hammer) won gold, with another nine athletes earning 10 combined second- and third-place finishes and the men’s team finishing third overall. Cal finished the season with 15 indoor and outdoor event squads ranked in the national top-25 as well as nine individual appearances. The Bears broke 12 school records, six meet records, five facility records and two Cal freshman records in addition to Alekna’s world record and Cypriot national records in the weight throw and U23 hammer from Valentina Savva.
Johnson directly coached the horizontal jumpers to four program top-10 marks (Jason Plumb and Trevor Rogers, indoor long jump; Myla Canty, indoor and outdoor triple jump) as well as two conference medals (Rogers – silver, outdoor long jump; Plumb – bronze, indoor long jump) and four All-ACC honors. The men’s long jump squad earned a national No. 6 outdoor ranking and a No. 9 indoor ranking, while the men’s outdoor triple jump unit was ranked 11th in the country. The Bears compiled 71 All-ACC Academic honors between the cross country (seven men, nine women), indoor (12 men, 14 women) and outdoor (14 men, 15 women) seasons combined, as well as nine CSC Academic All-District nods (five men, four women) and three CSC Academic All-America awards (one man, two women). The men’s and women’s track & field teams also earned collective USTFCCCA All-Academic recognition, with six members of the men’s team and seven members of the women’s team winning individual honors.
After the conclusion of the 2025 collegiate season, Garrett MacQuiddy broke his own school record in the 1500m, while Mari Testa (Austria – 100m hurdles), Audrey Jacobs (Netherlands – women’s hammer) and Lucija Leko (Croatia – shot put, discus) made appearances at the European U23 Championships, Testa having earned her spot with a gold-medal performance at the Austrian U23 Championships. Caisa-Marie Lindfors later took home a silver medal for Sweden in the women’s discus at the FISU World University Games.
In 2024, Cal sent nine qualifiers to the NCAA Outdoor Championships and four to the Indoor Championships, notching two First-Team All-America and 10 Second-Team honors. Senior Rowan Hamilton won the NCAA men’s hammer title (the program’s first in the event since 1922) and was named the USTFCCCA Outdoor West Region Men’s Field Athlete of the Year; he was also Cal’s first conference champion in the event since 1919, joining fellow Pac-12 Champions Skyler Magula (men’s pole vault) and Jeff Duensing (men’s shot put). An additional five Bears also finished in the conference’s top three, while Cal’s men placed third overall as a team. In total, Cal ended the year with 15 event squads (indoor + outdoor) ranked in the national top 25, as well as 19 individuals. The Bears also broke 10 school records, nine meet records and a pair of facility records; junior Mykolas Alekna additionally broke the discus world record while competing unattached at the Oklahoma Throws World Invitational.
Johnson’s 2024 horizontal jumpers notched two indoor (Mason Mangum, men’s long jump; Busola Akinduro, women’s triple jump) and one outdoor (Mason Mangum, men’s long jump) national top-25 rankings; Akinduro later earned Second-Team All-American status at the NCAA Indoor Championships. In the outdoor season, long jumper Jason Plumb won a bronze medal at the Pac-12 Championships, while the men’s long jump and triple jump squads finished the year nationally ranked No. 9 and No. 16, respectively. In total, the horizontal jumpers posted five new program top-10 marks. Johnson’s athletes earned 72 Pac-12 Academic Honor Roll nods between the cross country (seven men, five women), indoor (15 men, 16 women) and outdoor (13 men, 16 women) track & field seasons combined; eight (five men, three women) were also named CSC Academic All-District, with three of those (two men, one woman) advancing to Academic All-America status. Hamilton was also named the USTFCCCA Outdoor Men’s Field Scholar Athlete of the Year, leading a group of 16 USTFCCCA All-Academic Athletes (eight men and eight women) that helped Cal's men's and women's teams earn USTFCCCA All-Academic team awards.
Four athletes (current or former) who had competed for Cal during Johnson’s tenure appeared at the 2024 Olympic Games: Canada’s Camryn Rogers (women’s hammer, gold), Lithuania’s Alekna (men’s discus, silver), Canada’s Rowan Hamilton (men’s hammer, finalist) and Sweden’s Caisa-Marie Lindfors (women’s discus, semifinalist); another three Bears (David Foster, men’s 100m; Tyler Burns, men’s pole vault; Jasmine Blair, women’s discus) competed at the U.S. Olympic Trials. Meanwhile, three returning Bears earned medals on their respective national and international stages: distance runner Justin Pretre won a Canadian U20 title in the 1500m and subsequently competed in the World U20 Championships, while Alekna took bronze at the European Championships and Lindfors claimed silver at the Swedish Championships.
In the fourth year of Johnson’s tenure at the helm, Cal track & field saw a program-record 17 athletes travel to the NCAA Outdoor Championships, as well as two to the Indoor Championships; between them, they earned three First Team All-America honors and five Second Team nods. In total, 10 men’s squads and five women’s squads were ranked in the USTFCCCA’s top-25 list, as well as 14 outdoor and five indoor performances. The Bears collected 12 meet records, seven facility records, six indoor school records, five outdoor school records and two program freshman records while posting a combined 62 program top-10 marks throughout the season. Cal’s men placed fourth at the Pac-12 Championships, their highest finish in 15 years, while the women came in sixth. Discus thrower Mykolas Alekna and pole vaulter Skyler Magula earned conference championships in their respective events, while six other Bears won silver and three more took bronze. Alekna stood out once again in his sophomore campaign as he smashed his own collegiate record with a European (and unofficial World) U23 record at the Big Meet. Following the season, he was named a semifinalist for The Bowerman for the second straight year, as well as a semifinalist for the AAU James E. Sullivan Award; later, he earned both a national title in Lithuania and a European U23 title while taking bronze at the World Athletics Championships. Six other Bears earned national medals over the summer: Camryn Rogers (Canada, gold), Audrey Jacobs (Netherlands, gold), Carolina Visca (Italy, gold), Anna Purchase (Great Britain, silver), Ivar Moisander (Sweden, silver) and Nick Godbehere (U20 USA, bronze). Rogers later followed up her national title with a gold medal at the World Championships, while Purchase finished 11th in the field at that competition. Academically, the Bears excelled in the classroom once again – between the Fall (four men, four women), Winter (13 men, 14 women) and Spring (12 men, 13 women) Pac-12 Academic Honor Rolls, Cal cross country/track & field notched 61 appearances. Five men and five women were also named CSC Academic All-District, while eight men and 11 women (as well as Cal's men's and women's teams as a whole) were selected for USTFCCCA All-Academic honors.
Under Johnson’s direct coaching, the 2023 horizontal jumps squad sent two athletes to the NCAA Outdoor Championships in Asha Fletcher (triple jump) and Ijeoma Uche (long jump), with each of them ranking fourth and sixth, respectively, in program history. Triple jumper Busola Akinduro put her own stamp on the school’s all-time lists, making her way up to No. 5 indoors and No. 8 outdoors; over the summer, she earned a silver medal in the triple jump at the Bell Canadian Championships.
Johnson was named the USTFCCCA West Region Women’s Coach of the Year following the 2022 season, in which the Bears qualified 13 athletes to the NCAA Outdoor Championships after sending 31 to the NCAA West Regional – their largest group ever. The Bears collected five First Team All-American and three Second Team All-American nods combined between the Outdoor and Indoor Championships, while senior Camryn Rogers earned her third straight women’s hammer title and broke the all-time NCAA record for the fifth time to rise to No. 9 in world history. Under Johnson’s oversight, two Cal athletes – Rogers and Freshman Mykolas Alekna – earned their way onto The Bowerman Watch List for the first time in program history; the former reached the Final Three, while the latter became the program’s first men’s semifinalist after breaking the all-time NCAA discus record. At the Pac-12 Outdoor Championships, Cal put together arguably its best team performance in history, with both the men and the women scoring over 80 points each for the first time as a program. Some other first-time achievements included: having three throwing champions (Rogers, hammer; Alekna, discus; senior Josh Johnson, shot put), having both a men’s thrower and a women’s thrower earn championships, qualifying three men for the discus final, qualifying three women for the 100m final, and qualifying three women for the triple jump final. The Bears also excelled in the classroom that year – 21 women and 17 men were named to the Pac-12 Spring Academic Honor Roll, while 20 women and 15 men landed spots on the Winter Honor Roll. During the cross country season, 11 women and seven men earned their way onto the Fall iteration of that list. Three men and six women were selected for CSC Academic All-District honors, while both the men's and women's teams (as well as seven individual men and nine women) earned USTFCCCA All-Academic honors.
Johnson’s horizontal jumps squad ranked among the deepest in the nation in 2022, with two women reaching program outdoor Top 10 marks and three women setting new indoor Top 10 program marks. Sophomore Busola Akinduro competed at the NCAA Outdoor Championships in the triple jump, later winning the Canadian title in the event.
Following the 2022 NCAA season, Rogers and Alekna won the NCAA West Region Women’s and Men’s Field Athlete of the Year, respectively, later both going on to earn silver medals at the World Athletics Championships after earning national titles in Canada (Rogers) and Lithuania (Alekna). Each then won gold at separate major events, with Rogers coming out on top at the Commonwealth Games and Alekna outpacing the field at the European Championships. The former was named a Honda Sport Award finalist, while the latter won the European Athletics Men’s Rising Star award. Freshmen Amelia Flynt and David Foster also made their marks on the postseason circuit – the former won the USATF U20 shot put title and later competed for Team USA at the Junior World Championships, while the latter won bronze at the Junior World Championships with Team USA’s 4x100m relay squad.
In the 2021 track & field season, Johnson oversaw the development of several star athletes for Cal. Camryn Rogers won her second straight NCAA Championship in the hammer throw, setting a new collegiate record and later taking fifth place in the event at the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games; earlier that season, she also set the school record for the weight throw. That year, Johnson’s athletes earned three All-American honors (Rogers twice, Iffy Joyner once), two Pac-12 medals (Rogers, Joyner), and four school records (Rogers two, Ezinne Abba two). She also coached triple jumpers Asha Fletcher and Busola Akinduro to marks that landed them on Cal’s all-time Top 10 list. The Bears also excelled in the classroom under Johnson, with 17 men and 39 women making the Pac-12 Spring Academic Honor Roll. Earlier that year, in the 2020-21 cross country season, three men and two women finished in the top 40 at the Pac-12 Championships; the team also saw six men and 14 women reach the Pac-12 Fall Academic Honor Roll. Both the men's and women's track & field/cross country teams were named USTFCCCA All-Academic, while three men and 10 women received recognition as individuals.
2020 was another successful year for Johnson and her athletes. McKay Johnson broke the school record for the indoor shot put under Johnson’s supervision, while she directly coached long jumper Jared Geredes to Cal’s all-time Top Five list. Both McKay Johnson and fellow thrower Josh Johnson achieved All-American status that year. Several Bears received accolades for their academic efforts – both the men’s and women’s teams received USTFCCCA Academic honors, with two of the women also earning individual honors and another achieving coSIDA Academic All-District status. In total, six men and 14 women landed on the Pac-12 Fall Academic Honor Roll, while three men and 18 women appeared on the Spring iteration of the list.
In the 2019 cross country season, the Cal women won two meets and the men won one, with both Mina Anglero and Sara Osterburg placing first overall in separate races. Anglero’s performance that year earned her USTFCCCA All-West Region honors. In the classroom, the women as a unit received the school’s Annual Newmark Small Teams Award for the highest cumulative grade point average of all smaller athletic teams on campus. Three men and six women also reached Pac-12 Fall Academic Honor Roll status.
Johnson returned to Cal after spending the previous 14 years as the Director of Track & Field/Cross Country for Boston University. While directing the Terrier program, Johnson won nine conference track & field titles, five conference cross country titles and was named Coach of the Year seven times by the America East Conference and three times by the Patriot League. She was also a three-time winner of the USTFCCCA Northeast Indoor Track & Field Women’s Coach of the Year award.
Johnson also did an exceptional job of developing student-athletes at Boston University. David Oluwadara had a personal best of 47-3.75 in the triple jump when he entered school, but Johnson helped him increase his personal best by six feet as he earned two second-team All-America honors, won 10 Patriot League Championships and was twice the Patriot League Indoor Field Athlete of the Year. Tahari James is another standout pupil who won 12 America East titles and qualified for four NCAA Championships, recording a sixth-place finish at the 2008 NCAA Indoor Championship. Johnson also coached California natives Lovie Burleson and Kennedy Jones to success that year - the duo took the top two spots in the Patriot League triple jump competition and Burleson was named the Patriot League Female Field Athlete of the Year. During her Boston University Tenure, Johnson’s student-athletes achieved 30 All-America honors, 50 Patriot League Championships, 52 America East Championships, and 62 school records.
From 1995-2003, Johnson served as an assistant coach at Cal as the horizontal jumps and short sprints coach under Erv Hunt. While at Cal, Johnson coached six Pac-10 champions, six MPSF Champions and 11 student-athletes to the NCAA Championship final site, including seven first team All-Americans. During her first stint at Cal, Johnson had a huge hand in the success of jumpers Lenards Ozolinsh and Amy Littlepage. Ozolinsh took second in the triple jump at the 1995 NCAA Indoor Championship and third at the 1995 NCAA Outdoor Championship. He won two Pac-10 titles and two MPSF titles and is still the indoor school record-holder in the event. Johnson also coached Littlepage to three straight Pac-10 Championships in the triple jump. Twenty-two years after she graduated, Littlepage still ranks second in school history in the outdoor triple jump, behind only Sheila Hudson.
Johnson has a multitude of experience at the international level. She was named an assistant coach for women’s multi-events and jumps for the 2016 USA Olympic Team that competed in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, reprising that role for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Under Johnson’s tutelage in Tokyo, long jumper Brittney Reese took home a silver medal. In Rio, Johnson worked with Reese and fellow long jumper Tianna Bartoletta, who respectively won silver and gold in the event. Bartoletta set a personal best as the duo became the first Americans to take the top two spots at the Olympics in event history. At those Games, Johnson also helped Keturah Orji set a national record in the women’s triple jump. Johnson was an assistant coach for the United States at the 2012 DecaNation meet in France, as well as the head women's track & field coach for Team USA at the World University Games in China. She was also an assistant coach for the United States team that captured its first title at the 1998 World Cup in Johannesburg, South Africa and acted as an assistant coach for the 2003 Pan American Games.
As an athlete, Johnson was a five-time All-American in the triple jump at the University of Texas and was a key contributor to the Longhorns' first outdoor national championship squad in 1982; in 2022, she was inducted into the Texas Hall of HOnor. She was a four-time participant at the U.S. Olympic Trials in the triple jump and competed at the event at the 1991 World Championships in Seville, Spain, earning a ninth-place finish. Johnson was ranked in the Top 10 in the nation in the triple jump for 10 years, reaching a high of seventh in the world in 1992.
Johnson received her bachelor's degree in history from Texas and holds a master’s degree in education from California State University, Hayward. She also has six years of collegiate teaching experience in physical education.
