Cal Poly TF/XC Rounds Out 2022-23 Coaching Staff with Additions of Nourani, Venditti
8/24/2022 12:30:00 PM | Cross Country, Track and Field
SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. — Cal Poly Director of Track & Field and Cross Country Ryan Vanhoy announced the final two additions to his 2022-23 coaching staff Wednesday.
Mohammad Nourani has been named an assistant track coach, specializing in sprints, jumps and hurdles. Joe Venditti will serve as an assistant distance coach for the track and cross country programs, and assist in recruiting.
Mohammad Nourani — Assistant Coach, Sprints/Jumps/Hurdles
Nourani comes to Cal Poly after spending the past year as a volunteer assistant coach at Texas A&M. With the Aggies, he worked with the long, triple and high jumpers, and aided the steeplechase athletes.
During the 2022 outdoor track season, Nourani saw five of his high jumpers qualify for the NCAA West Preliminaries and three of his athletes advance to the NCAA Championships, including Aggie sophomore Lamara Distin, who swept the indoor and outdoor national titles in the women's high jump. Distin went on to finish ninth in the event at the 2022 World Athletics Championships while representing Jamaica.
Nourani also mentored Deborah Acquah and Carter Bajoit at Texas A&M. This past year, Acquah placed second in the women's long jump outdoors and third indoors, while Bajoit earned honorable mention All-American honors for his performance in the men's high jump.
Nourani also spent time this past fall with the Aggies' cross country program that finished sixth on the men's and women's side at the NCAA South Central Regional.
Nourani had connections to Vanhoy through their time spent in the SEC, and they shared a similar vision of elevating Cal Poly's performance on the national stage.
"I was excited about the goals Ryan had for the program because I believe we can build it into something really special," Nourani said. "It won't take us very long to be competing for a conference title year in and year out."
Vanhoy said Nourani has seen what it takes to be competitive at national meets and he is thrilled to welcome him to the program.
"He understands what high-level track and field looks like and has worked with some of the top athletes and coaches in the country while in College Station," Vanhoy said. "Through our conversations about joining the staff at Cal Poly, I found Mohammad to be incredibly sharp and liked his approach to developing the student-athlete holistically. I'm really excited for our Sprints/Jumps/Hurdles group to begin working with him, and I anticipate great things from that event area in the future."
In January 2021, Nourani joined the staff at his alma mater, University of Texas at Dallas, to serve as a volunteer assistant coach for the track and cross country programs. Due to COVID-19, the 2020 cross country season and the Comets' inaugural 2021 track season were held back-to-back in 2021. Nourani oversaw the sprinters, hurdles and jumpers at UT-Dallas, and assisted with the Comets' middle distance and cross country runners. In 2021, UT-Dallas produced American Southwest Conference champions in the 800, 1,500 and 10,000 meters, while the men's cross country team captured the ASC title and the women finished runner-up.
Nourani plans on making training and the daily grind enjoyable for athletes at Cal Poly. He brings a high-energy approach and bases a lot of his training techniques around science and research. Nourani said he also embraces input from his athletes.
"I think passion is contagious, so I like to display that for my athletes and hopefully it rubs off on them," he said.
Prior to coaching at UT-Dallas, Nourani served a one-year apprenticeship at ALTIS in Phoenix, Arizona, where he helped train multiple professional athletes, including Paul Dedewo, Courtney Okolo, Anaso Jobodwana and Aries Merritt.
Nourani, a native of Plano, Texas, was a two-time regional cross country qualifier at UT-Dallas from 2012-16 and a three-time academic all-conference member. In track, Nourani competed in a wide range of events during his collegiate career, including sprints, the 110 hurdles, long jump, triple jump, the 3,000-meter and relays.
Nourani earned a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from UT-Dallas in 2016, and obtained a master's degree in business administration in 2019. He's worked in operations at NASA's Ames Research Center since 2017.
Joe Venditti — Assistant Coach, Distance/Recruiting
Venditti spent the last year coaching and competing at Loughborough University in England. While working on his master's degree in sports management, Venditti participated in the Coaching & Volunteering Academy at Loughborough, giving him the opportunity to work with world-class athletes and mentor some of the best up-and-coming track and cross country prospects in the country.
Loughborough is recognized as one of the best universities in the world for sports studies. The school has also won 60 of the last 65 men's and women's BUCS Outdoor Athletics Championships, making it the most successful student athletics club in England.
Fresh off that once-in-a-lifetime experience, Venditti, a Staten Island native, is eager to get to work at Cal Poly.
"You're never going to meet a guy more passionate about the sport than me," he said. "I'll talk to you about the highs and lows because I've been through every single one of them and I still love it to this day."
Venditti was a standout track and cross country runner at Monsignor Farrell High in Staten Island, NY from 2013-17, serving as a captain his junior and senior seasons. He went on to compete at SUNY Geneseo, a Division III school in New York, before a ruptured and torn Achilles ended his collegiate career during his freshman season. Venditti has been coaching high school and college athletes ever since.
As devastating as the injuries were, the setback led Venditti down his current path and for that, he's grateful.
"I would have never been here if it wasn't for that," he said.
During the 2018-19 academic year, Venditti was a volunteer track and cross country coach at his alma mater, Monsignor Farrell. He also had a coaching stint at CSI McCown High School in Staten Island before joining the College of Staten Island track and field staff in December 2019 as a volunteer assistant for the Division II school.
Venditti spent two years at College of Staten Island and graduated from St. John's University in 2021 with a bachelor's degree in sports management.
Venditti first connected with Vanhoy nearly a year ago and when the Asheboro, N.C. native decided to join the Mustang family, Venditti knew he wanted to tag along.
"This job checked all the boxes and Ryan is a great mentor," he said.
Vanhoy said Venditti is already making his mark on the Mustangs and will be key to the program's success.
"Joe was one of the first assistant coaches we decided to bring on board, as he was planning to join us at Ole Miss prior to making the move to Cal Poly," Vanhoy said. "When I told him about the opportunity to join the staff here, he jumped at it immediately and has been working tirelessly since then. He has a great ability to connect with others which will serve him well in his new position."
Venditti wants to build a strong relationship with every athlete he mentors at Cal Poly and set them up for success in life after college.
"I want to empower my athletes and inspire them," he said. "Long-distance running is the perfect analogy for life. You have to go through adversity and it's not going to go your way a lot of times, but if you keep fighting, you'll eventually find a way through it."
