SLIPPERY ROCK, Pa. – Legendary Slippery Rock University track and field and cross country coach John Papa has announced the 2021-22 academic year will be his final year at The Rock as he will retire from his position June 3, 2022 after 35 years at the helm of the program.
 
Papa is one of the most successful coaches in Slippery Rock history in any sport and will step down after devoting more than 40 years of his life to the University, first as an All-American student-athlete and then as a coach.
 
"I've had a terrific run here at Slippery Rock," said Papa. "From my time as a student-athlete here to the many years coaching our track and field and cross country programs, Slippery Rock has been a wonderful place to call home. I will certainly miss The Rock and working with our students on a daily basis, but I am also looking forward to what comes next. I really want to thank all of our current and former assistant coaches and student-athletes. Without them, none of our success would be possible. I think making this announcement now will allow me to really enjoy these last three seasons this year."
 
Papa will continue to serve as the head coach of the men's and women's cross country, indoor and outdoor track and field teams for the remainder of the 2021-22 academic year.
 
Slippery Rock track and field and cross country alumni are invited to join coach Papa for a Homecoming tailgate Saturday, Oct. 16 prior to the football game. With the cross country team taking the weekend off, Papa will host an alumni tailgate event in the parking lot below the stadium from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.
 
Plans will be announced in the coming year for a celebration of coach Papa's career upon his retirement.
 

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LOOKING BACK AT JOHN PAPA'S TIME AT THE ROCK
 
The legacy that John Papa will leave at Slippery Rock cannot be overstated.
 
An All-American in the decathlon and a key contributor to the University's only NCAA team national championship in 1979, Papa was inducted to the SRU Athletics Hall of Fame on the merits of his athletic career in 1994.
 
A native of Monroeville, Pennsylvania, Papa chose to attend Slippery Rock University in 1975 after graduating from Gateway High School. He wasted little time in acclimating to the rigors of collegiate athletics, placing third in the decathlon at the PSAC Championships his freshman year, despite needing to make a quick trip to the hospital in Bloomsburg in the middle of competition after getting pieces of a broken pole vault pole stuck in his arm.
 
The next year, Papa reached an even higher level of success by earning All-America honors with a sixth place finish in the decathlon at the NCAA Division III National Championships.
 
He followed that up by helping The Rock to back-to-back PSAC titles in 1978 and 1979, concluding his athletic career with a runner-up finish at the National Championships in 1979 while helping SRU to claim the team national title (read more about the 1979 title here).
 
After graduating from SRU in 1979 with a degree in elementary education, Papa moved to Leesburg, Virginia to begin a teaching career. He also scratched an itch to stay involved with track and field by coaching at Loudon County High School, where he helped the team to second and third place finishes at the state championships.
 
Papa returned to Slippery Rock in the summer of 1984 to serve as a graduate assistant with the track and field program. He would earn his master's degree in athletic administration before accepting an assistant coaching position with the team. Less than a year later, in the fall of 1987, Papa was named head coach of the cross country and track and field programs by his former coach and then athletic director, Bill Lennox.
 
The 2021-22 academic year will mark Papa's 35^th full-time year as the head coach of those six Slippery Rock athletics teams.
 
What Papa has done as a coach overshadows even his own athletic accomplishments.
 
Slippery Rock has claimed 25 total PSAC titles under Papa, including 18 women's track and field titles, five men's track and field titles, one men's cross country title and one women's cross country title. The Rock have also picked up 28 PSAC runner-up finishes and won two East Region cross country titles.
 
The individual honors earned under Papa are even more staggering than the team accomplishments.
 
Since Papa took over the program in 1987, Slippery Rock has seen 12 student-athletes claim individual national titles, 123 student-athletes named as Division II All-Americans and an incredible 336 student-athletes claim individual PSAC titles.
 
Perhaps even more impressively than the athletic accomplishments of teams coached by Papa are the academic honors accrued over the last 35 years.
 
Slippery Rock annually carries well above a 3.0 GPA for its men's and women's teams. Papa has overseen 40 CoSIDA Academic All-Americans, 28 PSAC Top 10 award winners and five PSAC Pete Nevins Scholar-Athlete of the Year award winners, in addition to well over 500 student-athletes that have earned PSAC Scholar-Athlete honors.
 
Papa has been honored by his coaching peers with 21 PSAC Coach of the Year awards and 16 NCAA Division II Atlantic Region Coach of the Year awards.
 
The success of the track and field programs under Papa can be directly linked to his coaching philosophy, which has remained steady for 35 years.
 
"Our goal is always to have everybody on the team reach his or her potential," Papa says. "Not everyone can be a PSAC champion, but everyone can set a goal and be excited about hitting it. That's what we're all about – no one's left out."
 
That philosophy and attitude has touched the lives of roughly 1,000 student-athletes that have competed under Papa over the last 35 years and will likely leave an even longer lasting legacy at The Rock than all of the titles and awards.
 
Papa will continue his coaching career this weekend as Slippery Rock hosts the Bill Lennox XC Invitational at the Lawrence County Fairgrounds Saturday, Oct. 9. The event will include races for a wide margin of age groups, from elementary children all the way through collegiate runners.
 
Stay tuned for more information regarding future plans to celebrate coach Papa's career.  
 
 

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