Chris Baptista - Associate Head Coach - Track and Field Coaches

Coach Baptista With Bailey Jones at the Cal Poly Invitational

Photo by: Cal Poly Athletics

Chris Baptista

Title:
Associate Head Coach
Email:
cjbaptis@calpoly.edu

Chris Baptista joined Cal Poly’s staff as Associate Track & Field Head Coach in October of 2017, specializing in sprints, the long and triple jumps, and hurdles. He had served as an assistant coach at Fresno State from 2005-16 before spending 2017 in Admissions at Alabama.

In April 2022, Baptista took over as acting Director of Track & Field and Cross Country for the remainder of the season after Mark Conover, Cal Poly's Director of Track & Field and Cross Country for more than 13 years, passed away in early April after a year-long battle with a form of skin cancer.

Under Baptista’s leadership in 2022, Cal Poly finished fourth as a team on the men’s side and fifth on the women’s side at the Big West Conference Championships, three Mustangs took home conference titles and 17 athletes grabbed All-Conference honors.

In 2022 with the help of Baptista, Aidan McCarthy, a redshirt freshman, ran the second-fastest time in school history in the men’s 800-meter at the NCAA West Preliminaries to finish 15th overall and just 0.08 seconds away from qualifying for the NCAA National Championships. McCarthy also won the Big West title in the event.

Baptista worked directly with three athletes on the women’s side that finished third in individual events at the Big West Championships — Melody Nwagwu (triple jump), Anisa Rind (400) and Cassidy Hubert (800). Baptista’s women’s 4x400 relay team (Katelyn Carro/Anisa Rind/Kaila Bishop/Cassidy Hubert) also placed second in the conference.

Throughout his time at Cal Poly, Baptista has mentored six individual conference champions and 14 athletes that have garnered All-Conference accolades. His women’s 4x400 relay team also won the Big West title in 2021, helping the Mustang women capture the program’s first conference championship.

In the outdoor season, Baptista has watched 11 of his Mustangs post performances that rank inside the top 10 all-time in Cal Poly history. During the women’s outdoor season, 17 Mustangs coached by Baptista recorded performances in their respective events that currently sit inside the top five all-time in program history.

In 2021, Baptista mentored a pair of conference champions in Molly Ross (100 hurdles) and Anisa Rind (400).

Prior to the cancellation of the spring calendar due to COVID-19, the 2020 indoor season saw two of Baptista’s Mustangs break program indoor records. Molly Ross set a new school record in the 60-meter hurdles at the Arkansas Qualifier (8.61 seconds), while Mikaela Romanini also established a new top mark in the 600-meter (1:31.9) at the New Mexico Classic. The winter of 2020 also saw five more Mustangs coached by Baptista move into the all-time Top 5 in school history for indoor events between Seattle, Albuquerque and Fayetteville.

Previously, the 2019 season saw Baptista help mentor a duo of Cal Poly conference champions, as Abibat Rahman-Davies became just the third woman in the 36-year history of the triple jump at the Big West Finals to win back-to-back titles in the event.

Meanwhile Bobby Poynter also won the title for the men’s 800 meters as a true freshman, on his way to the USATF Junior Championships in Florida (where he took fifth place at the U-20 Pan Am Games qualifier).

In addition to Rahman-Davies (whose 2019 triple jump PR of 41 feet & 11.5 inches ranks No. 4 in school history), Bikram Thiara (52.14 in the 400 hurdles en route to a silver as a true freshman at the conference championships) also moved into the all-time Mustang Top 10, while Poynter (1:50.81 in the 800) was only four-hundredths of a second shy in his collegiate debut.

While with the Bulldogs, Baptista coached student-athletes to 71 NCAA postseason appearances, including five All-Americans (plus four All-America honorable mentions).

Also at Fresno State, he mentored 24 individual conference champions between the WAC and Mountain West, including in 2016 Je’Nia Sears, the MWC long jump champion with a school-record mark of 21 feet, 9 inches.

Combined between the men’s and women’s squads over Baptista’s 11 Fresno State seasons, 38 Bulldogs posted performances ranking in the top 10 all-time in program history, including school record-holders Njeri Omawahleh (23.45 seconds in the 200-meter dash in 2016); Kyra Johnson (57.85 in the 400m hurdles in 2016); Val-Pierre Dai’Re (50.37 in the 400m hurdles in 2010); and Dezirae Johnson, Kyra Johnson, Omawahleh & Nailah Harris-Murillo (3:35.34 in the 4x400m relay in 2015).

Baptista graduated from UAB in 1997 with a degree in Health and Physical Education/Fitness after competing for the Blazer track & field team. Prior to coaching with the Bulldogs, he also served on the staffs of Tulsa (2002-05), South Alabama (2000) and Troy (1997-2000), in addition to being the Head Coach at Shasta College from 2000-02.

Among Baptista’s certifications are Level V Elite Coach from the IAAF, Level 3 from USATF and Strength & Conditioning by the USTFCCCA. He also has served as Master Clinician for the USATF Learn By Doing Clinic.