"Coach Jess is a very knowledgeable throwing coach, and she has been able to develop several athletes to be successful at the regional and national levels. Even after witnessing athletes have potentially career-ending injuries, she was able to work with them and develop training programs to accommodate their abilities while also preventing further injury. As Hillsdale College is an academically rigorous institution, she is also vigilant of athletes’ academic performances (requiring freshman/upperclassmen with past academic struggles to have weekly academic check-in meetings year-round and mandatory team study hours during the fall semester). She also recognizes her throwers beyond athletics, and she has been understanding of athletes’ needs for time off due to family, health, and academic emergencies. The training sessions are intense, especially during fall conditioning, but her methods have yielded proven results (ie having event groups ranked nationally within the top 5 for many consecutive years). She is also very realistic with athletes about their goals, and she understands that athletes with varying abilities will have different goals, and she will create different training programs to help her athletes achieve their goals. The only critiques of the Hillsdale throwing program would be in regards to the amount of time that Coach Jess is available to athletes during practice sessions and the team culture. As the Hillsdale track team has a large number of throwers (20+ throwers this incoming Fall 2025), there are several different practice sessions for different event groups, so that she is able to provide as much coaching as possible. However, past athletes have expressed frustrations to one another about receiving less/unequal amounts of coaching during their practices in recent years (ie practice sessions for different events would take place at the same time, causing some athletes to receive direct coaching 2x per day and others to receive direct coaching 1-2x per week). This has led to a rise in issues within the team culture, as many athletes have felt there has been a rise in unhealthy competition between teammates for Coach Jess’ attention (ie comments from Coach Jess comparing upper and underclassmens’ athletic potential/ success, the “prize pony club,” upperclassmen with injuries feeling “replaced” by incoming athletes, and general pettiness/gossip between teammates). Despite these critiques, I still had a relatively positive experience as one of Coach Jess’ athletes, and I experienced lots of growth as an athlete and a person under her guidance. "