Coach Sheldon Blockburger returns to Arizona for the 2019 season following a three year stint with the University of Southern California.
Blockburger spent three seasons with the Trojans as the assistant coach for jumps and multi-events. In his first two seasons as USC’s jumps coach, his athletes have earned a total of seven All-America honors (4 indoor and 3 outdoor), three individual Pac-12 titles and seven MPSF indoor titles. In his first two seasons as a USC assistant coach his athletes have posted seven school all-time top 10 marks. Blockburger was named the 2017 Men’s Assistant Coach of the Year for the West Region during the indoor season as he guided Randall Cunningham to the high jump title and Dominic Smallwood to the long jump title at the MPSF Championships.
During his 10 seasons as the combined events/jumps coach at Arizona, he guided athletes to 11 NCAA titles and 16 Pac-12 conference titles. He had 39 athletes garner All-America honors during his time at Arizona. In 2015, Blockburger guided Pau Tonnesen to the Pac-12 Decathlon title and to a second-place finish at the NCAA Championships with a school-record 8,247 points.
Prior to coaching at Arizona, Blockburger coached nine seasons at Cal Poly where he led athletes to 14 Big West outdoor titles and two NCAA titles. He coached 15 All-Americans while at Cal Poly.
Many of the athletes Blockburger has coached have gone on to achieve international success, including 2012 Olympic Silver medalist Brigetta Barrett in the high jump.
Blockburger was an outstanding decathlete himself, placing second in 1989 and third in 1990 at the USA Track & Field Championships. He also placed third in the decathlon at the 1991 Pan American games in Cuba. He posted a personal best in the decathlon on 8,301 points at the USA Championships on June 13, 1990.
Blockburger attended Orange Coast College and won the 1985 California Junior College decathlon title. He then transferred to LSU and placed fifth in the decathlon at the 1987 NCAA Championships. He graduated from Newport Harbor High in 1983 and won CIF division titles in both the long jump and triple jump during his senior season, one year after joining the track and field team.
Blockburger and his wife, Cindy, are the parents of twins, Johnny and Alyssa.
