Michael Eskind

Michael Eskind is Stanford's associate head coach and recruiting coordinator, in addition to coaching the jumps, pole vault, and multi-events. He has coached at Stanford since the 2013 season.

Cardinal athletes have had great success under Eskind, including Darian Brooks, the first three-time Pac-12 men's triple jump champion since 1960, and Harrison Williams, the 2018 Pac-12 decathlon champion and third-place finisher at the U.S. Championships.

In his second collegiate decathlon, Williams broke Stanford's oldest record, the 63-year-old mark set by Bob Mathias while winning the gold medal and setting a world record at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics. Williams went on to finish fourth at the NCAA Championships and repeated as U.S. junior champion while breaking the U.S. junior record.

Remarkably, Williams set personal records in each of his first 12 multi-event competitions under Eskind, culminating with his fourth school decathlon record, of 8,032 points -- the highest fifth-place score in NCAA Championships history -- in 2016. His 5,970 total was the highest sixth-place heptathlon score in NCAA indoor meet history. In all, Williams has broken Stanford multi-event records six times.

Williams became Stanford's first conference decathlon champion in 24 years and his 1,641-point margin of victory is believed to be a meet record.

Eskind also created a strong pole vault group among men and women. In 2018, both Kaitlyn Merritt and Erika Malaspina advanced to the NCAA Outdoor Championships. In 2016, the men's team featured three vaulters -- Dylan Duvio, Williams, and Garrett Starkey -- over 17-3.

Under Eskind, Jaak Uudmae was one of the most versatile jumpers in Stanford history, with bests of 25-9 1/4 in the long jump, 51-5 3/4 in the triple, and 6-10 3/4 in the high jump. And in 2018, in the women's triple jump, Marisa Kwiatkowski set a Philippines national triple jump record of 42-4 3/4 (12.92 meters) and Aria Small (42-3 1/2, 12.89m) became the No. 2 freshman in school history.

Eskind, a native of Nashville, Tennessee, came to Stanford from Virginia, where he coached jumpers, vaulters and multis for four seasons. He coached Cavaliers to four Atlantic Coast Conference individual championships, four school records, and five NCAA meet appearances. Among them was Marcus Robinson, who set an ACC indoor triple jump record and became Virginia's first All-America in the men's jumps in 35 years.

Eskind also worked with two of the top female triple jumpers in the country, each winning U.S. Olympic trials championships: Shani Marks in 2008 and Amanda Smock in 2012.