Kaitlin Salisbury - Women's Track and Field Coach

Kaitlin Salisbury

Title:
Assistant Coach
Email:
kns007@bucknell.edu
Phone:
570-577-3011

Bucknell Track & Field head coach Kevin Donner reached into the vast reservoir of his alumni ranks for the program's newest assistant coach tabbing Kaitlin Salisbury for his latest hire as announced Monday. Salisbury will coach the jumps and multi-event athletes.

"We are very excited to have Kaitlin to join our coaching staff," said Donner. "As an alum, she was one of our all-time great athletes and was a part of some championship teams. She entered into coaching and spent a year at Rutgers in the Big 10 using her COVID fifth year. Thus, she has been a part of the highest level of track & field. She also spent two years as a full time coach at Williams College where the academic standards are very high and they were one of the top Division III teams nationally. These two experiences, plus being an alum, made the perfect fit for our program."

"It's an incredible honor to come back home and coach in a program that provided me so much in my life beyond the track and sand pit," said Salisbury. "The community of track and field, and Lewisburg in particular, have always been so warm and welcoming. It definitely made applying and accepting this position one of the easiest decisions I've ever made. I was very fortunate for the opportunity to show everyone what I could do as an athlete. Now I'm ready to show everyone what I can bring as an assistant coach!"

Bear Bryant famously proclaimed you come home when Mama calls and Salisbury is one of Bucknell's most famous daughters. The multi-event athlete played at Bucknell from 2016-2020 and dominated the Bison record book and Patriot League competition, despite losing her senior outdoor season to COVID. She used her extra year to run at Rutgers. She won Bucknell's highest athletic honor: the Christy Mathewson Award given to the finest senior athlete. From the very beginning of her career, she dominated tying the Patriot League record with six Rookie of the Week Awards.

She was a force to be reckoned with at the Patriot League Indoor Championships, becoming a three-time champion (2017, 2019, and 2020) in the 60-meter dash. The feat landed her three First Team All-Patriot League honors and she added a Second Team laurel. In 2017, Salisbury received Indoor Championships Rookie of the Meet. She won Second Team All-Patriot League three times at the Patriot League Outdoor Championships and likely would gone for four for four had COVID-19 not intervened. Overall, Salisbury collected eight All-Patriot League Selection (3x First Team, 5x Second Team).

The star scored prolifically at the Patriot League Championships. She tallied 72 points at the Patriot League Indoor Championships (60-meter dash,
200-meter dash, long jump, and triple jump) and collected 67 points at the Patriot League Outdoor Championships (100-meter dash, 200-meter dash, 4x100-meter relay, long jump, triple jump). Her outdoor total would have topped 70+ had the COVID-19 pandemic not force the cancelation of the 2020 outdoor championships.

Salisbury left Lewisburg holding the school record in the outdoor 60-meter dash (11.84), the outdoor long jump (19-9 1/2), and the indoor 60-meter dash (7.50). The 60-meter dash records have since been broken by Meghan Quinn but her name remains etched in multiple other top ten rankings.

She holds third in the outdoor triple jump (39-10 1/2), fifth (47.01) and sixth (47.09) in two different outdoor 4x100-meter relay teams, and seventh in the outdoor 200-meter dash (24.75). In the indoor top tens, she is third in the long jump (19-3 1/2), third in the triple jump (40-3 1/4), fourth in the 200-meter dash (24.69), and tenth in the sprint medley relay (4:14.51).

At the prestigious ECAC Indoor Championships, Salisbury earned All-East honors (top eight) twice. She become one of four Bucknell women to win an ECAC Championship when she won the 60-meter dash in 2019. In 2020, the runner finished fourth in the same event. At its sister competition, the Outdoor Championships, she finished fourth (2017) and sixth (2018) in the long jump and sixth in the 100-meter dash (2019).

For the Scarlet Knights, she performed in the 100 & 200-meter dashes, the long and triple jumps and the 4x100-meter relay for the 2021 season. Salisbury also served as a volunteer coach during the spring season and into the 2021 fall training session. She holds ninth place in the 4x100-meter relay in the Rutgers record book.

After her collegiate career concluded, Salisbury was hired by Williams College to coach the sprints and jumps and the head horizontal jumps. During her tenure, Williams finished third in the 2021-22 NCAA men's indoor championships, seventh in the 2022-23 men's outdoor championships, coached a long jumper to fourth nationally in the 2022-23 outdoor Division III rankings, and oversaw one NESCAC Champion, one All-American, and three national qualifiers during the 2022-23 season. She modernized the program's recruiting process via ARMS and handled social media content.

A native of Hawthorne, N.J., Salisbury graduated from Bucknell in 2020 with a Bachelor's in Studio Art and a Master's in Management and Labor Relations from Rutgers in 2022.