Track and Field program announces promotions, additions

The Track and Field program has promoted two coaches and added a third for the 2019-20 season.
The Track and Field program has promoted two coaches and added a third for the 2019-20 season.

The Tiffin University Track and Field program has announced some promotions and an addition to their 2019-20 coaching staff.

Ray Robinson has been promoted to Associate Head Track and Field Coach, while Nikki Hintze has been moved up to Associate Head Cross Country Coach. In addition, Andrew Sweeney has joined the Track and Field staff as a distance coach.

Ray Robinson enters his ninth year with the track and field team as the throws coach. Robinson has coached 30 1st team All-Americans in the throwing events, including 3 Individual National Champions and 4 Individual Runner-up finishes. Sixty-five Dragon throwers have earned a berth to the NCAA championship meet under his tutelage.  All twelve Tiffin throwing records have been broken during his tenure. Additionally, he has coached 10 GLIAC Champions and two GMAC Champions.  Robinson was named the USTFCCCA DII Indoor National Assistant Coach of the Year in both 2017 and 2019.
 
Robinson is a Tiffin University graduate with a degree in Human Resources.  He obtained his Masters of Business Administration also from Tiffin University with a concentration in Human Resources. 
 
Nikki Hintze enters her fourth season as assistant track and cross country coach at Tiffin University in 2019-20. Since starting in 2017, Coach Hintze has aided in the distance program breaking four school records: Indoor 3,000 meter, 5,000 meter, Outdoor 5,000 meter and 10,000 meter.  In addition, there have been National qualifying marks hit at 3,000, 5,000, 10,000 and the Distance Medley Relay.  Along with those accomplishments, the program had 5 top three finishes in the GLIAC as well as 4 All-American Honors (3-National Runners-Up).

Nikki is a 2007 Heidelberg College graduate with a degree in Sports Management and business where she captained the cross country and track and field squads. Coach Hintze won multiple OAC titles in Indoor and Outdoor track and was also an NCAA Championships Qualifier while graduating with 5 school records. Nikki obtained her Master's degree in Business Leadership from Tiffin University in 2011. After graduating from Heidelberg, she began working at Tiffin University and is currently the Executive Director for Online & Graduate Enrollment Management. 
 
Andrew Sweeney is entering his first year at Tiffin after spending the past two years at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY, working as a volunteer assistant coach with the men's middle-distance and distance programs. Under his tutelage, 4 middle-distance and distance top-10 marks in school history were established. The first recruiting class under his watch was regarded as one of the top in the northeast for 2018-19, and saw 3 different athletes break the previous freshman record of 8:21 for 3000m indoors. Prior to Cornell, he coached at Windsor High School in Windsor, N.Y. while student teaching in the fall of 2017. During his time there, two athletes qualified for their first New York state meet in cross country.


Collegiately, Andrew competed at the University of Missouri as a freshman before finishing his remaining eligibility at Binghamton University, where he earned a Bachelor's in English in 2016 and a Master's in Education in 2017. He was a 5-time conference academic honor roll member, and was inducted into the National College Athlete Honor Society in 2016. Before college, he had a standout career at Rush-Henrietta High School in Rochester, N.Y. as a key member of their nationally ranked cross country team and track & field relays. Andrew holds a USA Track & Field Level 1 coaching certification.