Staff Directory
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- Assistant Coach
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Jacob Pettinga is in entering his third year as an assistant coach for the University of Michigan track and field team in the 2025-26 season, primarily working with the men’s distance runners after serving as a volunteer assistant coach for two seasons.
In 2025, the men's distance squad captured a pair medals across at the Big Ten Indoor and Outdoor Championships, with Trent McFarland taking first in the mile run (4:03.56) and Caleb Jarema finishing second in the 3,000-meter steeplechase (8:42.53). McFarland set the mile run Big Ten Indoor Championships meet record with a 3:59.29 in the preliminary round, breaking the previous record of 4:00.56 set by Kevin Sullivan in 1998, and ran four sub-four-minute miles in the indoor season. McFarland also set the program indoor 800-meter run record (1:47.22) while the 4x800m relay team of Camden Law, McFarland, Henry Johnson, and Brendan Herger broke a 39-year-old record and shaved more than three seconds off the previous standard with a time of 7:24.65 to finish second at the Penn Relays. Herger and McFarland represented Michigan distance at the NCAA Outdoor Championships, both advancing to the finals in the 1,500-meter run and placing ninth (3:47.88) and 11th (3:47.94), respectively. Herger was the lone freshman in the field and was just 0.62 seconds behind the first place finisher. He was named the Big Ten Outdoor Freshman of the Year, the first Wolverine to earn the honor since Nick Willis in 2003. The Wolverines finished fifth at the 2024 Big Ten Cross Country Championships led by Nathan Lopez's 26th place finish (23:15.1). At the NCAA Great Lakes Regional, U-M finished sixth and was led by Luke Venhuizen's 22nd place finish (29:43.9). Venhuizen was named All-Region.
In 2024, Tom Brady set a pair of school records (indoor 5,000-meter run, 13:24.16; outdoor 10,000-meter run, 28:21.89). In the indoor season, Brady claimed two bronze medals at the Big Ten Indoor Championships (3,000-meter run, 7:57.85; 5,000-meter run, 13:58.15) and qualified for the NCAA Indoor Championships in the 5,000-meter run. Nick Foster added a school record in the mile run (3:54.48) and a ninth-place finish for Second Team All-America honors to his resume to lead the team's NCAA Championship effort. The school record (9:19.33) and Big Ten runner-up DMR team of Foster, Dubem Amene, Miles Brown, and Trent McFarland also advanced to the NCAA Championships. In the outdoor season, Brady defended his 10,000-meter Big Ten title and advanced to the NCAA Championships where he finished 15th for Second Team All-America honors. McFarland earned his first Big Ten title as a freshman in the 1,500-meter run (3:43.59), edging Foster by 0.05 seconds for a Michigan 1-2 finish. Foster (1,500-meter run) and Caleb Jarema (3,000-meter steeplechase) both advanced to the NCAA Outdoor Championships.
He joined the program while pursuing his graduate studies in movement science from Michigan, and after working with the Michigan Medicine Adaptive Sport and Fitness program. He also previously served as a volunteer assistant coach for Saugatuck High School.
He graduated from Calvin University in 2021 with a bachelor’s degree in Kinesiology, where he was a four-year member of the Knights’ track and field and cross country teams under former Michigan standout and Olympic medalist Brian Diemer. He was a two-time MIAA conference championships scorer on the track for Calvin in the 3,000-meter steeplechase and 5,000 meters, and was a competing member of three team MIAA titles in cross country.
