Assistant Coaches

David Risch begins his third season assisting with the Concordia track team this season after serving as head coach for 10 years. Risch, who has also headed up the Cougars' cross-country team for the past 14 seasons with five championships and four Coach of the Year honors to his credit, is responsible for 13 track records being set since the 1998 season.

Risch, a 1987 graduate of Concordia, earned his B.A. in elementary education. He taught junior high at Bethel Lutheran in Chicago for 10 years where he was Director of Athletics, coach of numerous sports, and Chairman of the Lutheran School League of Chicago for eight years. In addition, he was one of four finalists for the Good News Award for excellence in teaching in 1996.

Risch was a four-year letterman at his hometown Seymour (Ind.) High School where he received the Senior Athlete of the Year Award in 1983. He was a four-year letterman in Concordia's track and cross-country programs, the team captain in Concordia's first-ever conference championship, and all-conference for four seasons in both sports. In addition, Risch received NIIC All-Scholastic honors twice and as a senior received Concordia's Terry-Schubert Award for Christian Service.

Coach Risch is currently an active member of the United States Track Coaches Association, United States of America Track and Field, American Running Association, Illinois Track and Cross-Country Coaches Association, International Amateur Athletics Federation, National Federation of Interscholastic Coaches Association, Fellowship of Christian Athletes, and Bell-Lap Ministries.

 

Andy Chizzo returns for his fifth season as a member of the Cougar coaching staff. He will assist the team in the pole vault and decathlon/heptathlon events.

Chizzo was a five-year Division I athlete at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee where he excelled in the pole vault, hurdles, javelin and decathlon. By his senior year of 1994, Chizzo was captain of the track team and recorded a 15'9" pole vault, a record that stood for the next 10 years. His mark of 170' 2" in the javelin, recorded that same year, remains among the school's top 10 in that event. He graduated in 1994 with a bachelor's degree in graphic design.

Chizzo currently resides in Oak Park with his wife Sara and four daughters; Natalie, Evelyn, Audrey and Vera.

 

John Farrand begins his first season with the Concordia track team as assistant coach for the team's sprinters.

Farrand graduated Concordia in 2006 after participating in track for two years.  While a student at Concordia, he was an assistant cross-country and track coach for three years at nearby Oak Park-River Forest High School.  Farrand was also the Junior Varsity cross-country coach and assistant track coach at Lincoln-Way Central High School in New Lenox for three years after college.

Farrand attended Lakeshore High School in Stevensville, Michigan and was part of the 2001 Lancers' state champion track team. He continues to run and train for 5K's and marathons.

 

Katie Kloess joins the Cougar track staff for the 2009-10 school year as the coach for the women's throwers.

Kloess, younger sister of Katrina, lettered in track and volleyball for four years, serving as team captain for each sport. She currently holds the track team's records for the indoor 20-lb. weight throw (33'5 3/4" in 2009) and the outdoor hammer throw (103'2" in 2009).

In 2009, she too became one of a select few to receive both the A.W. Gross and the Terry-Schubert Awards. A Lutheran elementary education major, Kloess is student teaching in Australia in the fall of 2009, and she will begin pursuing her Master's degree in exercise science upon her return to Concordia in January of 2010.

 

Katrina Kloess begins her first season as part of the Cougars' coaching staff. She will work with the women's sprinters.

Kloess was a standout member of the Cougar track and cross-country teams, and she was a member of the 4 x 400 and 4 x 200 relay teams that set school indoor records back in 2002. As of September 2009, she was sixth on Concordia's all-time list for fastest times in the 6K (25:42 in 2003) and tenth in the 5K (21:17 in 2002).

Kloess was a recipient of Concordia's two highest honors for student-athletes, the A.W. Gross Distinguished Senior-Scholar award and the George Terry-John Schubert Memorial Christian Service Award.

Tom Sisulak begins his first year with the Cougar coaching staff.

Sisulak is an experienced track coach of 41 years who is sharing his knowledge with the Cougar athletes in multiple events. A native of Riverside, Illinois, Sisulak attended Riverside-Brookfield High School and Carthage College before beginning his coaching career at West Aurora High School in 1969.

In 1971, Sisulak took a teaching and coaching position at LaFollette High School in Madison, Wisconsin. Over the next 31 years, his track, cross-country and gymnastics teams earned a combined five state championships and 25 conference championships. Sisulak coached over 200 individual conference champions, 40 individual state champions, 19 individual national competitors and one individual world competitor.

Sisulak returned to Riverside in 2002 and established the Riverside Sports Academy. Over the past eight years, he has offered private coaching for high school, college, post-college and professional track and field athletes.

Sisulak has served six-year terms as president for the Wisconsin Cross-Country Coaches Association and the Wisconsin Gymnastic Coaches Association, and a two-year term as vice-president for the National High School Track and Cross-Country Coaches Association.

In 1998, Sisulak was honored by the United States Congress for Outstanding Leadership in Teaching and Coaching. In 2002, he was named by Who’s Who in American Education as one of America's Outstanding Teachers and Coaches. Sisulak was also named the National Coach of the Year by the National High School Gymnastics Coaches Association in 1985.

An avid runner who has completed 31 marathons and hundreds of 5K, 10K and 20K races, Sisulak has earned three USA National Championships and national records in the 1,500 and 5,000 meters. He continues to train for state and national competitions in the marathon, half-marathon, 10K and 5K races, and track events.

 

Andrew Tirmenstein is in his third year as an assistant coach for the track team.

"I am very excited to have the chance to work with this coaching staff and these athletes," says the former Cougar. "I look forward to seeing where this program could go in the next couple of years."

Tirmenstein returns to his alma mater after serving as an assistant coach for two years at Walther Lutheran High School. In 2005, he took two seniors to the Illinois state meet in the long and triple jump with one of the long jumpers finishing ninth. Two of his triple jumpers reached the state meet in 2006.

Tirmenstein competed in the Cougar track program for four seasons between 2003 and 2006 as a sprinter and jumper. During the indoor season of 2003, he ran the 400-meter leg as part of the distance medley, and that foursome holds the school record to this day with a time of 10:54.72.

Tirmenstein also played three years of soccer at Concordia and was a key contributor to the 2005 conference-winning team. The 2009 season was his third as a soccer assistant.

A native of St. Louis, Tirmenstein lettered four years in both track and soccer at Lutheran North High School. He was part of the 2001 Missouri state champion team, competing in relays and hurdles.

Tirmenstein graduated Concordia in 2006 with degrees in secondary education and visual arts. He currently works at Run Chicago in the neighboring suburb of Forest Park and continues to pursue his goal of making it to the Olympic trials in the long jump.

 

Floyd Turner is the newest member of the Cougar coaching staff. He will work with the men's throwers.

Turner competed in track and football at Iowa Wesleyan College. He is IWC's record holder in the discus (184'2" in 2005) and the hammer throw (167'1" in 2007), and he was in the U.S. top 40 in the discus in 2005, 2008 and 2009. Turner has achieved personal bests of 191'4" in the discus, 58'0 1/4" in the shot put , 167'1" in the hammer, and 52'8 1/4" in the 35-lb. hammer throw.

Turner coached strength and conditioning at Iowa Wesleyan and, more recently, served as the assistant throws coach at Iowa Central Community College. For the latter, he coached five NJCAA national qualifiers and four school records.

Turner is the 2003 Illinois State champion in the shot put and discus, and the 2007 Midwest Collegiate Conference Track and Field Athlete of the Year, and an NAIA national qualifier in the shot put, hammer and discus.

Turner graduated Iowa Wesleyan in 2008 with a bachelor's degree in exercise science and wellness.