Delray man selected as men’s team head coach for World Athletics Cross Country Championships

The last time the United States men’s Under-20 World Cross Country team won a medal in the World Athletics Cross Country Championships, Rick Rothman was in high school.

He was the head cross country and track and field coach at Spanish River High School from 1983 to 2013 where he led the girls’ cross country team to seven state championships and one runner-up title.

Rothman also paced the boys cross country team to a runner-up title, as well as both cross country and track and field teams to multiple championships.

The 70-year-old Delray Beach resident recently led the United States men’s Under-20 World Cross Country team to a bronze medal in Australia, and after that, he was named head coach of the USATF’s World Cross Country senior men’s team, which will compete in Belgrade, Serbia on March 30. They have six runners and the top four finishers for the team will count.

“To me, to be chosen is the ultimate honor,” said Rothman, who will coach the men in the 2024 World Athletics Cross Country Championships. “I’m eager to contribute to the success of an incredible team on the world stage on their journey to gold.

“This has always been my dream to coach Team USATF at the World Cross Country Championships,” he added, “and this will be my second opportunity to represent the USA. It’s an honorary position because they all have their own coaches. The senior team is all professionals and what I hope to do when we get there is really help them run as a team. The Under-20s had four in college and two were in high school.”

Rothman said he knew he was up for the senior coach position after discussions at the national convention in December.

“I just didn’t think it would be this soon,” he said. “Usually, they don’t take the U20 coach and promote them, but we didn’t have anyone with experience taking them to a foreign country at this time as the senior coaches. We are just going to go and do the best we can.

“It was very exciting for the U20s to bring home a bronze,” Rothman said. “We told them to go out slow because the other teams were going to go out like crazy people. I put myself in a place where I could tell them to move and go catch people. The good thing is there are four coaches, and they all work together.”

In 2012-13, Rothman was named National Coach of the Year, for girls cross country, by the NHSACA; three times as Florida State Coach-of the Year, for Girls Cross Country; as well as numerous Coach of the Year awards from various newspapers and organizations.

Rothman has been inducted into the Palm Beach County Sport Hall of Fame, Florida Athletic Coaches Association Hall of Fame, Florida High School Athletic Association Hall of Fame, and the Florida Track and Field Hall of Fame.

From 2013-2022, he was a volunteer assistant cross country and track and field coach at Florida Atlantic University. He has served as head men’s coach for USATF teams in 2000 Ekiden Team-Japan, 2015 NACAC Cross Country Championships-Tobago, and 2023 Men’s Under 20 team at the World Cross Country Championships in Bathurst, Australia.

He has also served as head girls and boys junior track and field coach for the 2009 and 2013 World Maccabiah Games in Israel, as well as the Open Men’s and Women’s coach for the 2017 World Maccabiah Games in Israel.

“It would be awesome to bring home a medal,” Rothman said.