Mike LoBue begins his fourth season as an assistant coach at San Diego State. He is in charge of the jumps and throws, and also serves as co-strength and conditioning coach for the Aztec women[apos]s track and field team.
Last season under LoBue[apos]s direction, sophomore Decontee Kaye became SDSU[apos]s first All-American in a horizontal jumping event and the 16th overall in school history when she finished in fourth place at the NCAA outdoor championships. Kaye broke her own school record and established a personal record in the process as she finished the competition with a leap of 44-4.25. Her effort was the third time of 2007 that she set a new program record in the event. Prior to nationals, Kaye took home the Mountain West Conference outdoor triple jump title before finishing second at the NCAA West Regionals. In addition to her excellence in the triple jump, Kaye also excelled in the long jump posting the third-best mark in school history after she recorded a distance of 20-4.25 as runner-up at the MWC Championships.
Sophomore Karoline Koehler also enjoyed an impressive first season on campus as she qualified for the NCAA outdoor championships in the triple jump. Prior to nationals, Koehler placed third at the regional meet with a national qualifying effort of 43-3.75. During the indoor season, she garnered all-league triple jump accolades after finishing with the third-best leap in the conference and the second-best in SDSU history at 41-11.25. In the outdoor long jump, Koehler was an all-conference selection after finishing in third place at the league meet and posted the second-best effort in program history when she won the event at the Trojan Invitational with a leap of 20-4.50.
In 2006, he helped then-freshman Kaye break the SDSU record in the indoor triple jump and match the standard during the outdoor season.
Kaye[apos]s indoor performance of 42-2.00 was an NCAA provisional qualifying leap and as a result, earned her MWC athlete of the week honors. She also became just the second Aztec to surpass 40 feet and her effort was the second-best in MWC history.
For an encore, LoBue helped Kaye break an 18-year-old school record in the outdoor triple jump. Her leap of 41-9.75 at the Duke Invitational tied Gaylen Ames[apos] school record set in 1988 and it topped her NCAA regional qualifying mark by eight inches.
Classmate Shana Watson enjoyed a banner year under the tutelage of LoBue as she earned all-conference accolades in the outdoor long jump and triple jump. Her leap of 40-10.50 in the triple jump at the league outdoor meet was good for second place and fourth in school history. In addition to her conference performance, she qualified for the NCAA West Regionals and finished with a personal- and team-best effort of 20-1.00 in the long jump (third in SDSU history) and registered a triple jump of 38.7.75. Following the regional meet, Watson competed at the USA Track and Field Junior Championships and came away with the silver medal in the long jump and the bronze after leaping a personal best (41-5.25) in the triple jump.
Besides helping Kaye and Watson, LoBue also coached another freshman in Kristin Olafsdottir to a pair of Icelandic records. The freshman set her native country[apos]s standard when she earned 3,843 points in the pentathlon at the MWC indoor meet and then broke Iceland[apos]s 21-year old record in the heptathlon with 5,402 points at Mt. SAC, a performance she tied later in the year at the league championships. Adding to her list of accomplishments, Olafsdottir became the first athlete in the history of the MWC to be named freshman of the year and win the high point award at the conference outdoor event.
Similar to the aforementioned group, Leanne Taylor, another first-year Aztec thrived under LoBue[apos]s guidance. The Porterville, Calif., native posted personal bests and NCAA regional qualifying standards in the shot put and the discus with marks of 47-7.00 and 164-0, respectively. At the regional meet, she ended the campaign having posted a distance of 150-7.00 in the discus and a 44-5.25 effort in the shot put. Like Watson, she competed at the USA Track and Field Junior Championships and played 8th in the shot put and 13th in the discus.
In 2005, LoBue coached Janine Polischuk to a third-place performance in the heptathlon (5,050 pts.) at the MWC outdoor championships and also had five out of six athletes score points in the other jumping events.
The Aztecs did not have any throwers in 2005, so LoBue assisted with the throws at the Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista, where he coached Ian Waltz, Jarred Rome and Nick Petrucci at the USA Track and Field Nationals to first, third, and fifth-place finishes, respectively, in the discus. Waltz went on to finish fifth at the world championships, while Rome placed seventh. LoBue also worked with Jamie Beyer and coached him to a 69-4 performance and fifth place at the USA Nationals in the shot put.
LoBue comes to SDSU from the University of Utah where he coached the jumps and the multi-events from 2001 to 2004. He also served as the strength and conditioning coach for the men[apos]s and women[apos]s cross country teams. At Utah, LoBue developed the women[apos]s pole vaulting program from a nonexistent event in 2001, to one of the strongest in the conference in 2004. He was also instrumental in the reinstatement of the men[apos]s track and field team in 2004, where he coached the first male to score in the conference in a field event in more than a decade (javelin). LoBue left Utah after coaching a conference champion in the pole vault in 2003, as well as many other conference and regional placers in his three years there.
Prior to his tenure at Utah, LoBue was the jumps and relays coach at Golden West High School in Visalia, Calif., from 1996-2001, where he produced numerous high-caliber athletes in the pole vault and multi-events. In 2000, he coached a student-athlete who captured a USATF age-group decathlon title. In 1997, he helped a student-athlete break the national sophomore class record in the pole vault.
During his time at Golden West High, LoBue served a one-year stint as a volunteer coach at Fresno State for multi-events from 1999-2000. He also made a stopover at the University of Nebraska in 2000, working with the pole vaulters and multi-events before returning to Golden West.
When he is not coaching at San Diego State, LoBue coaches pole vaulters in the Sheffield Elite Track Club and holds an annual instructional pole vaulters camp along with assistant coach Rich Fox. In fact, LoBue helped Jonathan Takahashi place sixth overall in the pole vault at the 2006 USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships. Competing as an unattached athlete, Takahashi cleared 18 feet, 4.5 inches, which was the third-best clearance of the meet.
A 2001 graduate of Fresno State with a degree in mass communication and journalism, LoBue was a member of the track and field team where he competed in the pole vault and the decathlon. LoBue earned his master[apos]s degree in sport psychology from the University of Utah in 2004. He is a certified strength and conditioning specialist through the National Strength and Conditioning Association.
A native of Visalia, Calif., LoBue and his wife Brooke reside in San Diego.