Coaches

Dave has been coaching young athletes at the high school level for 45 years, and club athletes for 30+ years. Retired from teaching, Dave now coaches full time at the Central Toronto Athletic Club. As Head Coach at CTAC, Dave is responsible for coaching our recreational and competitive athletes from U14 to U20. He is also responsible for designing and overseeing the training programs for our CTAC athletes, and advising our coaching staff on the implementation of their programs.

Dave’s goal is to enable and inspire athletes of all ages, to maximize their potential and instill self-confidence by creating a relaxed and positive environment where athletes will succeed. Dave believes athletes achieve their full athletic potential in a structured and nurturing environment, and that they gain strength from the synergy that exists in a strong training group. Everyone improves at an accelerated rate.

Dave has coached 12 National Teams including head coach for the 2015 U18 World Track & Field Championships, 2009 World Cross Country Championships and 2009 Ontario Canada Summer Games head coach.

Dave not only has an extensive background in middle distance coaching, but is also a seasoned coaching course instructor/evaluator and race organizer.

Amanda is a National Coaching Certification Program (NCCP) Sport Coach with Athletics Canada. She has taught in the private school system before giving up her career to focus on raising her three children. She is an accredited British Gymnastics Coach for Women’s Artistic Gymnastics and has coached at a private school in London, England. Amanda has been a competitive athlete her entire life having run marathons and half marathons and currently enjoys competing at the regional level in cross fit competitions.

Aside from her coaching expertise, Amanda brings energy, a strong willingness to learn, and a female perspective to our coaching staff. She shares the responsibilities of monitoring and coaching the High School Group along with Dave and has been coaching with CTAC for 7 years.

Amanda is an NCCP certified Club Coach.

With her first 10 km at 8 years of age, Sue has not stopped, whether it is a run with one of her kids or running one of her yearly marathons. As a runner for over 40 years, she is still running and competing with her family or individually in races from the 5 km to the marathon. Sue was the inaugural winner of the Toronto Scotiabank marathon and still is competing at this distance.

A physical education/guidance counsellor with the TCDSB, Sue has coached cross country and track for over 25 years at the high school level. She has a phys. Ed degree and masters in sport psychology. And when time permitted, she also coached at her children’s elementary school.

Sue has been a CTAC parent for a number of years, while also filling in gaps when needed for the coaches. She has also represented the club in the masters division.

Emma ran with CTAC for many years, and in her final year, she was one of the captains of the club. Following her time at CTAC, she went on to run post-collegiately at Queen’s University and then at Dalhousie, where she completed her undergrad.

Emma loves, both running and working with kids, and hope to make a positive impact in these young runners’ lives.”

Janice has three school aged children and has coached her daughter’s cross country running team since 2018. She has run a total of 10 marathons including Boston, Chicago and London, UK. She is currently halfway through her goal of completing the World Marathon Majors.

Janice loves working with kids and watching them push themselves to new personal bests.

Coach Oscar is a senior student at Riverdale Collegiate. He was a competitive run club athlete for six years, and TDSB city finalist in Cross-Country. Oscar has been coaching with CTAC for two seasons. He is a fitness and wellness enthusiast. He loves both running and working with young athletes.

Mark is a teacher and NCCP Certified Coach with over 20 years of coaching experiences at the high school, club and university level.
Formerly the head coach of the Markham Track club from 1995 until 2015, Mark then helped coach at the elementary level with his kids and now that they are older he is happy to be back coaching at the high school level again.
Mark assists Dave with the U14-U20 group.

Natali started running competitively in grade 7 and moved to be with CTAC in our first year. She is a three time OFSAA team champion (Lawrence Park CI), CTAC Athletics Ontario cross-country team champion and CTAC National cross-country team champion. Nat also coaches hockey and spin classes and is very grateful to be able to work with athletes and use hervprevious experiences to help guide them to be the best they can be.