Rick Attig

 

Rick Attig is beginning his fifth season as the Nebraska pole vaulters and multi-events coach, and has seen great success from his Husker athletes on the national level.

In 2003, Attig coached Eric Eshbach to an outdoor national championship and an indoor runner-up finish at the NCAA Championships in the pole vault. Eshbach also added a third-place finish at the 2004 outdoor nationals. In his first four seasons with the Huskers, Attig’s athletes have won 11 All-America honors, with seven of those awards coming in 2004.

Attig helped lead Eshbach to indoor NCAA All-America honors in 2000, 2001, and twice in 2003, as well as four Big 12 titles, including the league outdoor title in 2004. During Attig’s coaching tenure, Eshbach also set school records in the indoor and outdoor pole vault. Another former vaulter, Brad Teeple, placed ninth (fifth American) at the 2004 NCAA Indoor meet to earn All-America honors.

Also setting a standard in the women’s pole vault, Attig is coaching some of the finest female vaulters in the country. Jenny Green earned a pair of third-place finishes at the 2004 NCAA Indoor and Outdoor Championships, while Christi Lehman earned a ninth-place (eighth American) finish indoors. Under Attig’s tutelage, Green, Jessi Graff and Lehman have rewritten the NU record books several times during the last two years, while Green and Lehman have combined for three of the last four Big 12 titles.

Attig coached Alissa Koerner to a second-place finish in the pole vault at the 2001 Big 12 outdoor meet after she began the discipline only two months earlier. In 2002, Attig coached Koerner, Lehman and Stephanie Teeple to top-10 Big 12 finishes, and all three vaulted heights that placed them in Nebraska’s top 10 all-time indoor marks.

In the multi-events, Katherine Livesey won a Big 12 outdoor championship in the heptathlon in 2002. She also earned a second-place finish in the pentathlon at the league’s indoor meet, before taking third in the heptathlon at the Big 12 Outdoor Championships in 2001. Livesey finished 10th in the heptathlon at the 2001 NCAA outdoor meet.

It did not take long for Attig to find Livesey’s replacement, Ashley Selig, who he has coached to four second-place finishes in the Big 12 indoor and outdoor championships in 2003 and 2004. Selig broke onto the national scene last year by earning All-America honors while finishing third in the heptathlon at the NCAA Outdoor Championships. She also earned a seventh-place finish in the pentathlon at the Indoor Championships.

On the men’s side, Attig coached Chris Richardson to a Big 12 title at the 2004 Indoor Championships, only the third Husker to win a multi-event at the conference indoor meet. Another former Husker, Casey Thom, earned a 10th-place finish at the 2003 NCAA Outdoor Championships for All-America honors.

As a longtime Kansas assistant track coach, Attig produced 33 All-America performances in 16 seasons as the Jayhawks’ vertical jumps/combined events coach.

At KU, Attig helped seven men’s vaulters reach the 18-foot plateau, a feat that has not been reached by any other collegiate coach. In all, his athletes won five national championships, broke two NCAA records and claimed 33 conference titles.

On the women’s side, Attig coached KU pole vaulter Andrea Branson to five All-America certificates in three seasons, including indoor and outdoor All-America honors during the 2000 season. Attig also coached five-time All-American Candy Mason at Kansas.

Former Attig-coached vaulters Pat Manson and Scott Huffman both experienced success at the international level after leaving Kansas. Manson was the 1996 U.S. Indoor champion, while Huffman, a three-time national champion, was a member of the 1996 U.S. Olympic Team and once held the American record with a vault of 19-7.

Aside from vaulters, Attig also coached three All-America high jumpers from 1992 to 1995, while his multi-event athletes claimed four All-America performances.

The author of the USA Track and Field pole vault manual, Attig also served as the National Pole Vault Development chairman. At the 1989 and 1993 U.S. Olympic Festivals, Attig was selected to serve as the jumps coach for the North team.

A native of Murphysboro, Ill., Attig earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Southeast Missouri State, where he was a four-year letterman and team captain in both football and track. He was inducted into the Southeast Missouri State Athletic Hall of Fame in 2003 for his contributions to the program as a student-athlete. He then coached at Cape Girardeau Central (Mo.) High School for two seasons and at Raytown (Mo.) South High School for seven seasons before joining the Kansas staff in 1984.

Attig and his wife, Stephanie, have two children, Garrett and Marci.