The New Class of Coaches Transforming Caltech Athletics

Several new head coaches have joined Caltech Athletics over the last two years, igniting a culture change within these teams and injecting new technical know-how.

by Andrew Moseman

In the third part of a series of stories about inspiring Caltech coaches, we feature those who have joined Caltech in the past couple of years. See our previous profiles of swimming and diving coach Andy Brabson and women’s volleyball coach Tom Gardner.

Jen Clark

Women’s Soccer, winner of Fall 2022 Coaching Staff of the Year honors in the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference.

You just finished your first season as coach with a record of 4-8-5, Caltech’s best mark in history. How did this year feel?

It was such a joyful season, honestly. The team is fantastic. I mean, you couldn't ask for a more hardworking, better bunch of people to work with.

Every season, we always talk to them about how every group is unique. This is your only chance to operate as this particular group, so what is it that we want to achieve? There are always a certain number of wins attached to your goals. But we also remind them that wins, they're tricky in soccer, because even a really good team can have a year where you just don't win because a referee calls a penalty in the last minute or other random factors. If we base everything around wins and losses, that's going to be tricky. So, we talked about questions like, how do you want to feel when the last game is over? What does that feel like, and how can we know if we've been successful?"

I think the players didn't want the season to be over. They are excited for what was coming next. So, in that way, we were successful with the season, which makes me really happy.

Benay Weintraub

Women’s Tennis

What are Caltech student-athletes like?

They're not like any other team I've coached, which is another reason to love them. They come to practice and talk about the problem sets they have and talk about their professors. Just the conversations we have are a little bit different.

Other teams I coached, they would tell me about the new flavor of ice cream in the cafeteria or about the latest music videos and Netflix shows. I don't understand when these students talk about problem sets and the things they're working on, but I enjoy listening to it because I think it's incredible. They'll say, "Oh yeah, no big deal." I'm like, "No, it is a big deal. It's super cool."

But we meet in the middle and joke around because I'm a big fan of reality TV. And so now a couple of them will come and ask me, "Oh, did you watch The Bachelor or The Bachelorette the other day?”

They're definitely a special group. They're a lot of fun, and the more we continue to build a relationship as a team and individually, I think we'll have even more fun conversations—not all about problem sets.

Annie Tarakchian

Women’s Basketball

Why did you want to coach at Caltech?

This role feels like a culmination of all my experiences—academically, athletically, and personally. I’ve previously studied at an elite academic institution, played globally alongside many different cultures, coached in the Division III setting, served as a mental health professional, and, funny enough, spent a lot of time wearing orange. (My high school, Chaminade College Prep, and my undergraduate college, Princeton, were both orange). I feel like my role as head coach here at Caltech allows me to put all of my past to optimal use. ... It's rare to find a job that feels that way, and my heart is full to be here.

Honestly, to be a part of an institution like Caltech in any capacity is a privilege, and I feel so grateful to be amid such ambitious and dedicated individuals, both students and staff. The student-athletes are excellent and so humble. That really is the exciting part: to be surrounded by people who are so resilient, diligent, and passionate about what they do.

For me, success means showing up and competing every day, and doing our best to better ourselves as basketball players, students, women, humans, and all of the other roles we play in our lives. And not just improve ourselves but each other—that's the true power of a team. Our goal is continue making strides within our program and making a name for Caltech within SCIAC.

Kelli Blake

Women’s and Men’s Track & Field and Cross Country

Why did you want to coach at Caltech?

I really enjoy coaching Division III. I really enjoy coaching at strong academic schools. Also, being near mountains was really important to me, being from Colorado.

I felt like it was a good fit for me, and I knew I wanted to be a head coach again. The fact that Caltech is a smaller team is helpful because the personal relationships are really important to me. When you're a head coach of a massive team, you end up doing so much administrative work that it's hard to really build relationships with people. With a smaller team, I can do my administrative stuff and do the coaching part that I actually enjoy the most.

My student-athletes are a very intrinsically motivated group, which is nice. They're also very good at competing when it matters most, which makes sense that as a group they do well under pressure.

I have a collaborative style of coaching where I give them a lot of ownership and decision-making power. And I like them to be able to understand why they're doing what they're doing, and I think that's very important to them. As Caltech students, they really need to understand why they're training, how they're training, and they also need to be able to make decisions about their training as they go.