Tatijana Jacobson is in her first season as jumps & multis coach at the University of Arizona. Prior to her time at Arizona, she spent one indoor season at Central Michigan.
In her one season at CMU, she coached jumps and multis and guided Gavin Jaime to a sixth-place finish in the men's heptathlon and Lexi Robinson to a seventh-place finish at the 2020 Indoor MAC Championships. Prior to her time at CMU, Jacobson was the jumps & multis coach at Georgia. From 2013-15 she was a volunteer assistant at North Carolina.
During her time at Georgia, the Bulldogs piled up two national team championships and 12 top-six finishes at the NCAA Indoor and Outdoor Championships, including two runner-up placings and 10 top-four podium finishes, primarily from points generated from the student-athletes she helps coaches.
Led by legendary national scorers Keturah Orji and Kendell Williams, the Bulldogs combined for 22 Southeastern Conference individual titles, produced 18 NCAA champions and had 63 First Team scoring All-Americans. Thanks in large part to Orji’s contribution in 2017-18 and Williams’ success in her final campaign in 2017, the Lady Bulldogs secured the program’s first NCAA indoor team title in 2018 and finished second at the NCAA Outdoor Championships that June for the second consecutive year. Both runner-up team finishes were by less than two points.
Individually, Orji set American and collegiate records in the outdoor triple jump in 2016 and in the indoor event a year later under the tutelage of Jacobson and Kyprianou. Then in 2018, Orji improved her collegiate records both indoors and outdoors and bumped her American indoor record to 47 feet, 11 ¾ inches. Jacobson also played a role in Orji winning the 2016 U.S. Olympic Trials (the first of three straight U.S. outdoor titles for Orji) and taking fourth at the Rio Games by just three centimeters (48-3.25) to represent the top American finish in history.
Meanwhile, Jacobson helped guide Williams to better her own collegiate record in the pentathlon (4,703 points) and capture her third NCAA title in the event in 2016. A year later, Williams captured her unprecedented fourth national championship in the pent and third in the heptathlon to finish as one of the greatest collegiate performers in the history of the sport.
Jacobson has also primarily worked with the men’s high jumpers who have teamed up for the 2018 IAAF World Junior title, two SEC individual championships and 10 First Team All-America certificates, including two third-place finishes by Keenon Laine at the NCAA Championships.
Laine rose to No. 1 in the UGA indoor record books in the high jump at 7-5.75 while Carbin has gone over the bar at 7-5. Outdoors, Laine is second in UGA history at 7-5 and Carbin has a top Bulldog mark of 7-3 to also be on the school’s all-time list. 2018 freshman Antonios Merlos followed up his fifth-place finish at the 2018 NCAA Outdoor Championships by winning the world junior title thanks to a personal-best mark of 7-3.75.
In 2019, the Bulldog men finished in the top 10 nationally both indoors and outdoors, including a fourth-place finish at the NCAA Outdoor Championships. Sophomore Johannes Erm turned his second consecutive SEC heptathlon title into an NCAA decathlon crown outdoors. Laine also had a pair of top-four finishes at Nationals while Carbin also scored in the high jump at the outdoor NCAA meet.
In addition, Jacobson helped guide transfer Aliyah Whisby to scoring All-America honors in events during both the indoor and outdoor seasons and a trio of freshman – Titiana Marsh (triple jump), Sterling Lester (heptathlon) and Sakari Famous (high jump) – to appearances at the NCAA outdoor meet’s final round.
Jacobson also had success alongside Kyprianou with true freshman Tara Davis in 2018 on both the track and on the runway. Davis set an American/World Junior record in the 60-meter hurdles at the 2018 NCAA Indoor Championships with a school record time of 7.98. She was a First Team All-American in the hurdles as well as in the long jump as the Lady Bulldogs pulled off an unprecedented 1-2-3 finish in the event. Outdoors, Davis scored again in the long jump at the NCAA Championships, won the USATF Junior Championships during the summer with a personal record of 22-0.25 and earned a bronze medal at World Juniors (first medal for an American in the event).
After graduating from Woodmore High School (Ohio), Jacobson competed for her first two years at Bowling Green. She then transferred to Eastern Michigan and quickly shot to No. 2 in the Eagle record books with a 6-foot clearance in the indoor high jump. Jacobson completed her career at No. 2 in the EMU outdoor record books as well.
Jacobson, a co-captain for the Eagles, earned All-MAC Second Team honors during both the indoor and outdoor seasons at EMU and competed at the 2013 USATF Championships as a senior. She graduated from EMU with a degree in Communications in May 2013 after being named to the Academic All-MAC squad.
