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Head Coach Jeremy Karger-Gatzow

Bio

  • Karger-Gatzow is in his ninth season as the Johnnies' head track and field coach in 2023-24.
  • He replaced Tim Miles, who announced his retirement as head track and field coach following the 2015 season after 36 seasons at SJU.

 

 

 

2023 Season

Saint John's finished second – two points from first – out of 11 teams at the MIAC Indoor Championships. Joe Charbonneau ’24 qualified for the NCAA Indoor Championships in the pole vault but did not place. He was named the MIAC Indoor Field Athlete of the Year after he won the conference title in the pole vault with a season-best height of 4.91 meters and earned U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) All-North Region honors. Outdoors, SJU won its second-consecutive outdoor title (14th overall) at the MIAC Championships held at Bethel. The Johnnies won six events on the final day (eight total for the two-day meet) for 216 points to win the 11-team field. Kevin Arthur ’23 repeated as conference champion in the 100- and 200-meter dashes, as well as a member of the Johnnies’ 4x100-meter relay team (Emanuel Popoca ’25, Brady Labine ’22 and Caden Wheeler ’26), en route to earning his second-straight MIAC Outdoor Track Athlete of the Year honor. Arthur (100-meter dash) and Hague (javelin) earned All-America honors with seventh-place finishes at the NCAA Outdoor Championships. The distinction was the second-straight for Hague, who broke SJU's program record in the event May 3 with a personal-best distance of 68.10 meters. Grove finished 18th in the steeplechase at nationals and collected three academic awards for the outdoor season. He matched his MIAC Elite 22 Award from the indoor season, earned CSC Academic All-America honors for cross country/track and field with Lloyd Young ’24 and received the NCAA Elite 90 Award for having the highest cumulative GPA among the student-athletes who qualified for the national meet.

2022 Season

  • The Johnnies won four events and totaled 15 All-MIAC (top-three individually, champion relay) performances en route to its first MIAC indoor championship. Maguire Petersen ’22 was named the MIAC Men's Outstanding Field Athlete and Karger-Gatzow earned Coach of the Year honors.Outdoors, SJU won its 13th outdoor team title and first since 2011. The Johnnies took first place in nine events, including five on the final day of competition. The team then tied for 26th at the NCAA Division III Outdoor Track & Field Championships held in Geneva, Ohio, thanks to All-America performances from Brett Hague ’23 in the javelin (fourth place) and Maguire Petersen ’22 in the decathlon (fifth place).

2021 Season

  • The MIAC did not hold an indoor-championship meet but did outdoors, where SJU placed second. A program-record eight Johnnies earned All-America honors at the NCAA Division III Outdoor Championships in Greensboro, N.C. Pole vaulters Shawn Schindler '22 and Drew Dockendorf '21 finished fourth and sixth, respectively, while Maguire Petersen '23 tied for eighth in the high jump. Ryan Miller placed third in the 100-meter dash and the 4x100-meter relay (Jack Young, Kevin Arthur, Brady Labine, Miller) took fourth.

2020 Season

  • The Johnnies hosted the 2020 MIAC Indoor Track & Field Championships and finished fourth. SJU qualified a program-record five student-athletes, all in individual events, for the NCAA Indoor Championships before the meet was cancelled.
  • COVID-19 also canceled the outdoor season, which barred SJU from defending its NCAA Division III title in the 4x100-meter relay.

2019 Season

  • SJU finished third out of 11 teams at the 2019 MIAC Indoor Championships. Drew Schoenbauer ’19 won the 200-meter dash with a school-record time of 22.19 seconds, while SJU’s 4x200-meter relay also broke a school record to take first. Kai Barber ’19 qualified for the NCAA Division III Indoor Championships in the shot put and finished 10th out of 20 throwers with a PR mark of 16.29 meters, the third-best distance in SJU indoor history.
  • The Johnnies finished second out of 11 teams at the 2019 MIAC Outdoor Championships and won four events. The 4x100-meter relay (Nick Gannon, Drew Schoenbauer, Brady Labine, Ryan Miller) won the national title with a time of 40.92 seconds and Miller claimed second in the 100-meter dash at the NCAA Division III Outdoor Championships in Geneva, Ohio.

2018 Season

  • SJU finished fifth out of 11 teams at the 2018 MIAC Indoor Championships.
  • The Johnnies finished third out of 11 teams at the 2018 MIAC Outdoor Championships and won three events. Miller '21 broke the Johnnies' 50-year old school record with a time of 10.61 seconds April 26 and surpassed that with a time of 10.57 seconds in the preliminary race at the MIAC Championship.

2017 Season

  • SJU tied for fifth out of 11 teams at the 2017 MIAC Indoor Championships.
  • The Johnnies finished seventh out of 11 teams at the MIAC Outdoor Championships.

2016 Season

  • SJU finished third out of 11 teams at the 2016 MIAC Indoor Championships.  
  • The Johnnies finished second out of 11 teams at the MIAC Outdoor Championships held in Clemens Stadium. First-year head coach Jeremy Karger-Gatzow was named the MIAC Men’s Outdoor Coach of the Year.

Awards & Honors

  • National Champions (2)
  • All-Americans (25)                   
  • All-Region (91, 31 indoors and 60 outdoors)
  • All-MIAC (182, 71 indoors and 111 outdoors)
  • Academic All-Americans (6)
  • Academic All-District (9)
  • MIAC's Elite 22 Award (5): Carter Grove in 2023 (indoors and outdoors), Tommy Allen in 2022 (indoors and outdoors), Matthew Burgstahler in 2018 (outdoors)

Accomplishments

  • Karger-Gatzow was named the MIAC Indoor Track & Field Men's Coach of the Year in 2022 and the MIAC Outdoor Track & Field Men's Coach of the Year in 2016, 2019, 2022 and 2023. Ryan Bugler '17 won SJU's fifth individual national championship outdoors in the steeplechase in 2016 and finished fourth in the event in 2017. The Johnnies' 4x100-meter relay team won the NCAA Division III title in 2019 and Ryan Miller '21 finished second in the 100-meter dash.

Past Experience

  • A 2000 graduate of Hamline, Karger-Gatzow was a four-year sprinter on the Pipers’ track and field team. He was a seven-time Upper Midwest Athletic Conference (UMAC) coach of the year at Minnesota-Morris and sent 13 student-athletes to the national meet during his tenure, in which six earned NCAA Division III All-America honors. He built Morris’ co-ed track and field roster from 12 in his first season to over 50 in 2015. In addition to his coaching duties, he taught various courses in the sport studies and athletic departments.
  • Karger-Gatzow served as an assistant track and field coach at Bryant University in Rhode Island for two seasons from 2000-02 before leaving to enroll in graduate school at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He was a teaching assistant in various anatomy and kinesiology courses there and completed his master’s degree in movement sciences in 2005.

Personal

  • A native of Glenwood, Minn., Karger-Gatzow was a 1996 graduate of Minnewaska Area High School. He and his wife, Erica, have two children.