Jay Stepp-Yucca Valley Chapter Director
Bio:
Jay Stepp began his running career at Jenks High School in Jenks, Oklahoma in 1975. He ran competitively for 4 years until an injury forced him to go in another direction. He became involved in coaching in 1980 while he attended school at Eastern Oklahoma State Junior College and then again at Oklahoma State University. In college, his roles were limited to monitoring workouts and timing as directed by the head coach. He took over his first program in 1984 when he student taught at Edison High School in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He then took a teaching position in California and began coaching at Yucca Valley High School for 27 seasons. He served as the head coach in cross country for 26 years and spent 18 years as the head track coach in 2 different stints, but continuously served as an assistant throughout the entire time. He has a Bachelor’s and Master’s Degree in Physical Education with an emphasis in Kinesiology & Anatomy. Both degrees are from Oklahoma State University, Go Cowboys!
While at Yucca Valley, the boys and girls cross country programs have a combined total of 29 league titles, 54 CIF appearances, 17 CIF Finalist Teams, and 7 State Finalist Teams. Individually, 19 athletes earned 27 All-CIF Honors, two athletes earn 2nd team All-State Honors, and 1 athlete earn 3rd Team All-State Honors. Multiple athletes have gone on to run in college with Mike Crouch being the most famous. Mike won 3 National Titles and was a 7 time All-American.
His Track teams have produced a combined 25 league titles, 24 All-CIF Athletes, 5 Individual CIF Champions ( Rebecca Heard x 2-1995 & 1996-3200 M, Sean Patterson-1996-3200 M, Ryan Davis-2003-400 M, Teyana Poole-2013-Triple Jump, William Perrance-2015-Long Jump) 5 CA State Qualifiers, and one CA All-State athlete(William Perrance-2015-Long Jump 6th place).
Email Coach Stepp
