SAN DIEGO – San Diego State cross country head coach and distance coach Robert Lusitana has announced the hiring of Jessica Kain as the team’s new assistant coach. Kain graduated in the spring of 2024 after spending five years on The Mesa.
“We are ecstatic to have Jess back with the program,” said Lusitana. “She has tremendous knowledge and familiarity with our team, and will be a great mentor and positive influence to all our student-athletes as she begins this new stage of her career.”
One of the best distance runners in program history, Kain etched her name all over both the cross country and track and field record books and was a four-time all-Mountain West performer in her career.
In cross country, she owns the only sub-20-minute 6k time in program history, running a 19:58.3 at UC Riverside last year as one of her four SDSU course records. Further, she has the three fastest 6k times regardless of course in Aztec cross country history. At the 2024 conference championships, she finished with the best placement by an Aztec in over a decade. Similarly, at the 2023 NCAA West Regionals, she recorded the best finish for SDSU in nearly two decades.
On the track, she holds the SDSU record for the indoor 3,000m, ranks second all-time in the outdoor 1,500m, third all-time in the indoor mile and outdoor 5,000m, fifth all-time in the outdoor 5,000m, sixth all-time in the indoor 800m and ninth all-time in the outdoor 800m. She also ran a leg on the school record indoor distance medley relay team as well as the medley relay that ranks fourth in program history.
Kain won back-to-back silver medals in the 1,500m at the conference championship meet to close her career and qualified for the NCAA preliminaries in the event three times in four years. Shortly after her graduation, she won her first international 1,500m race with a lifetime best of 4:12.59.
