Moon Township, Pa. – RMU cross country and track & field head coach
Bryan Delsite announced Thursday that
Juris Silenieks has been named assistant coach for the Colonials. As part of his duties, Silenieks will coach the distance runners.
"We couldn't be happier to add Juris to the RMU cross country and track & field program as an assistant coach," Delsite said. "Juris has a wide range of experience both as a coach as well as during his time competing at collegiate, regional and national levels, and I know he's going to be a huge boost for our student-athletes. We have a young group of distance runners with a lot of potential, and I can't wait to watch them develop under his guidance."
Silenieks, a native of Pittsburgh, Pa., joins the RMU coaching staff after spending the last year as an assistant coach Pine-Richland High School, where he facilitated daily workouts and strength routines to help maximize performance.
In February of 2021, Silenieks founded The Pittsburgh Track Club, which supports the grow of the Pittsburgh running community by building partnerships with local businesses to provide support for elite athletes in the region. Also as part of The Pittsburgh Track Club, Silenieks helped create cross country and track & field opportunities at inner city schools in Pittsburgh and also coached elite team members to qualifying marks for the Olympic Trials.
During the 2020-21 academic year, Silenieks served as the cross country head coach at Southwestern Michigan College in Dowagiac, Mich., recruiting student-athletes, organizing training routines and arranging travel for a program that has claimed 23 Michigan Community College Athletic Association (MCCAA) titles as well as five junior college national championships.
A 2016 graduate of Syracuse University, Silenieks earned a Bachelor of Science in exercise science with a minor in food studies. While a student-athlete with the Orange, Silenieks was a member of the cross country squad that claimed the 2015 NCAA national championship. A member of the 2015 All-Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) Academic Team, Silenieks also qualified for the 2020 Olympic Trials in the marathon.
Silenieks is in his second stint with the Colonials, as he began his coaching career as a volunteer assistant at RMU from 2016 to 2018. During that stretch he helped develop Maggie Prorok (2014-17), who earned 2016 All-Northeast Conference accolades after finishing fourth at the NEC Cross Country Championships and also owns one of the top 10 times in program history for track & field in the 10,000-meter.
RMU continues its 2022 cross country season Saturday, Oct. 15, by traveling to Gettysburg, Pa., to compete in the Aubrey Shenk Invitational, with the men (8K) slated to begin at 10:00 a.m. and the women (6K) to follow at 11:00 a.m.
Cover Photo Credit: Karen Mitchell
Follow The Colonials: Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | RMU Athletics Gameday App
