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Ralph Lindeman is beginning his 19th season at the helm of the Air Force track and field team. He is well-known throughout the international track and field community and holds many distinctions from his long involvement with both the Olympic sport and the Academy's athletic program. From the very first day he stepped onto the track at the Academy in 1989, the Falcons have benefited from Lindeman's leadership and his love of coaching.
Over his tenure, he has earned numerous distinctions and honors. Lindeman is a five-time conference Coach of the Year and the 2001 NCAA Mountain Region Men's Outdoor Coach of the Year.
He has guided the men's program to 13 top-three finishes during the Mountain West Conference indoor and outdoor seasons, including three runner-up positions. He has watched the women's program break numerous Academy records and become a significant force in the league.
His work is not limited to the boundaries of the Academy. Most recently, Lindeman served as an assistant coach for the U.S. Men's Track & Field Team that participated in the 2007 World Championships in Osaka, Japan. Previously he was the jumps, pole vault and decathlon coach for the U.S. Men's Track & Field Team at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens. That team collected 19 medals - including two Gold and five Silver medals from Lindeman-coached athletes - for the squad's highest medal count since the 1992 Games in Barcelona.
In addition to his work with the Olympic Games, Lindeman has also served as the head men's coach for the 2001 World University Games, 1999 Pan American Games and the "North Team" at the 1993 U.S. Olympic Festival.
He also served as an advisor to the South Korean team at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul and was a scheduling manager for the 1996 Games in Atlanta. As the chairman of the Hurdle sub-committee for USATF's Men's Development Committee, he coordinated video analysis of all hurdle races at USA Championships and Olympic Trials and managed a series of mini-camps for the elite U.S. male hurdlers at San Diego's Olympic Training Center that ran annually from 1993 to 2000.
He has also worked on the coaching staff for the United States men's team at the 1992 World Junior Championships and the "West Team" at the 1987 U.S. Olympic Festival.
Lindeman first became excited about track and field as a seventh grader at Phoenix Christian Grade School in Arizona, when his physical education teacher took his class to a collegiate track dual-meet featuring Arizona State and New Mexico. Later, the influences of his high school track coaches, according to Lindeman, "unknowingly inspired me to pursue coaching."
Lindeman's coaching career began in 1973, when he was an assistant coach at Carl Hayden High School in Phoenix, Ariz., working with the football and track teams. From there, he became an assistant track coach at Glendale High School in Glendale, Ariz., working under Ken France, a legend in the Arizona coaching ranks. He also served as the head coach for the cross country and track teams during his five-year tenure at Glendale.
Following a stint as the boys' track and cross country coach at Westwood High School in Mesa, Ariz., Lindeman moved up to the collegiate ranks, becoming an assistant track coach at Arizona State, coaching the field events for the men's team. The 1982 Sun Devil team won Arizona State's first-ever PAC-10 title in track and field.
In 1982, Lindeman went to the University of Arizona as an assistant coach of the men's and women's teams, overseeing the sprints, hurdles and jumps. Both the men's and women's teams placed in the top 10 at the 1984 NCAA Championships.
Lindeman credits Dave Murray at the University of Arizona for giving him his first full-time job at the university level and teaching him about coaching collegiate athletes.
Lindeman left Arizona in 1984, when he was named the head coach at Long Beach State University. During his five years there, he took the men's and women's track and field teams, as well as the cross country teams, to new heights in the Big West Conference. He remained with the 49ers until his appointment to the Air Force Academy.
In 1989, Lindeman came to the Academy as the head coach of the men's and women's track and field team, as well as the head coach of the men's cross country program.
As the cross country mentor, he guided the Falcons to their first-ever conference championship, when they claimed the 1991 Western Athletic Conference championship.
Led by two-time WAC Champion, Chris Nelson, Lindeman's 1991 team went on to place second at the regional meet and 14th at the NCAA Championships.
The team's second-place finish at the regional championships remains the best finish ever by an Air Force cross country team, while its placing at the national meet is the program's second-best finish since 1967.
Since Lindeman's arrival at the Academy, the Falcons have accounted for 31 WAC champions and 48 Mountain West Conference champions. In addition, the men have rewritten 35 Academy records, while the women have displaced 32.
Lindeman-coached Air Force teams have produced two national champions, including Callie Calhoun, who earned five titles during her career. His teams have also garnered 35 All-America selections.
Lindeman has a simple coaching philosophy which is summed up in the USAFA core values - "Integrity first. Service before self. Excellence in all we do".
He believes that his role as the head coach is to make sure that the program provides a framework in which the cadet-athletes can achieve excellence, not only athletically, but also academically and militarily.
In addition to his coaching duties, he has been a featured speaker at coaching clinics in 25 states and four countries, while writing articles that have been published in three journals and chapters of the textbooks "Hurdles: Theory and Technique" and the "USA Track and Field Coaching Manual" (1999 edition).
Lindeman has been very active on various track and field committees, as well. He sat on the men's hurdle development committee during four Olympic quadrennials, holding the chairman's position from 1993-2000.
He has also served on the NCAA Track and Field Rules Committee, acting as the chairman for the 2000 outdoor championships and was the president of the U.S. Track and Field Coaches Association (Division I Coaches) from 2000-03.
Lindeman sees his involvement with these organizations as a way to not only make a significant improvement to the sport of collegiate track and field, but to extend benefits to the development of the Air Force program.
Lindeman graduated in 1973 from Arizona State University with a bachelor's degree in physical education. He went on to complete a master's in exercise science from ASU in 1976.
He has been married to his wife, Cindy, for the past 36 years. They have two children and five grandchildren.
Their daughter, Jennifer, is a graduate of Arizona State. The former primary grade school teacher now tutors elementary children. Her husband, Brian Rowedder, is also an ASU graduate, and works at Ent Federal Credit Union. Jennifer and Brian have three children, Maddison (9), Brock (5) and Landon (3).
Their son, Brian, is a firefighter in Parker, Colo., and a former high school state champion in the pole vault. He is married to Heather Dunavint, a neo-natal nurse at University Hospital in Denver. They have twin girls, Elsie and Mira, who were born in December 2005.
