Joe Puleo returns for his fifth season coaching the Rutgers-Camden outdoor track teams after another successful winter with the Scarlet Raptors’ indoor program. Puleo’s indoor teams established 14 program records on the men’s side and added six from the women’s team, collected three New Jersey Athletic Conference champions and a pair of All-NJAC Honorable Mentions, and posted the highest conference finish in the three-year history of the men’s indoor program.
Rutgers-Camden capped the indoor season when the men’s 4x800 team finished a close second at the ECAC Championships March 8. The quartet of Akeem Lloyd, Frank Iwanicki, Mike Fox and Jonathan Salamon set a program record that day with a 7:53.29 clocking.
Overall, the Scarlet Raptors won indoor conference championships in both the men’s 4x800 (Fox, Iwanicki, Lloyd and Salamon) and distance medley (Travis Stewart, Stefon Coleman, Lloyd and Salamon). Freshman Ken Wise, won the NJAC high jump title, while Fox finished third in the mile. The women’s distance medley team (Brandee Neiderhofer, Ayla Maldonado, Steph Scarpa and Robin England) also finished third at the NJAC meet to earn all-conference honorable mention.
The success of the winter program was built on another strong cross country season for Puleo’s Raptors. During the fall of 2007, Puleo earned his second consecutive honor as the NJAC Men’s Cross Country Coach of the Year. His Raptors placed second in the conference meet for their highest finish ever.
Along the way, Puleo’s men won invitationals at Lebanon Valley College, Cabrini College and at the Gulf Coast Stampede in Pensacola, Florida. Stewart became the only All-NJAC First Team runner in the history of the men’s program, then added another first later in the year when he became the only Rutgers-Camden runner, male or female, to compete at the NCAA Division III Championships.
Stewart, who ran the four fastest certified 8K times in Rutgers-Camden cross country history, was one of several standouts as Puleo molded his men’s team into an up-and-coming force in the region. Fox and Salamon also earned all-conference honors when they were both named to the NJAC Second Team. The Raptors also received their first vote ever toward the NCAA Atlantic Regional Top 10 poll for the week ending Sept. 15. It was one of five times throughout the season they received votes toward the regional poll.
Puleo’s women also served notice of a bright future, with freshman Robin England earning All-NJAC Second Team honors and freshman Vanessa Wright setting a program 6K record.
In addition to his cross country and indoor track duties, Puleo has spent the last four spring seasons coaching the Rutgers-Camden outdoor track programs. During the 2007 spring track season, the Rutgers-Camden men established 11 school records, saw Salamon earn All-NJAC Second Team honors at 800 meters and had four athletes earn NJAC Honorable Mention: Jon Anderson (javelin), Fox (1,500 M), Lloyd (800 M) and Stewart (3,000 M Steeplechase). Stewart capped the year with a third-place finish at 10,000 meters in the ECAC Championships.
Puleo’s 2006 outdoor track team established four school records (raising two of those marks twice) and featured six All-NJAC stars, including First Team honors for Salamon (800 M), Stewart (10,000 M) and Carmen Zimmitt (long jump with a school and meet record).
Puleo’s track teams placed six new marks in the school record books during the spring 2005 season, raising the bar 14 times on those various records. The 2005 track season was capped by 11 team and individual honors at the NJAC meet.
The 2005 women’s team finished third at the NJAC Championships, earning Puleo honors as the NJAC Women’s Co-Coach of the Year. The season ended with Tameka Jackson earning her second consecutive Division III All-American honor in the 100-meter dash. She is the only female All-American in Rutgers-Camden track history.
During Puleo’s first year with the track program in 2004, the Raptors broke 18 school records, raising the bar repeatedly in several categories. They eventually established five new Rutgers-Camden school records for both the men and the women.
Puleo started the indoor track program during the winter of 2005-06. During their first season, the Raptors competed in four meets and produced a pair of All-NJAC stars in Imani Hafiz (NJAC Second Team in the triple jump) and Salamon (NJAC Honorable Mention in the 800 M).
Puleo’s second-year indoor program established 16 school records over the winter of 2006-07. Fox was named the Most Outstanding Male Athlete at the NJAC Indoor Track & Field Championship, on his way to earning All-NJAC First Team honors at 800 meters and anchoring the All-NJAC First Team Distance Medley squad. That team also featured Salamon, Coleman and Lloyd.
Puleo’s 2006-07 indoor team also saw Stewart earn All-NJAC Honorable Mention at 3,000 meters.
The cross country program served notice it was turning the corner in 2006. Puleo led his men’s team to a fifth-place finish in the 2006 conference meet – Rutgers-Camden’s best finish ever until the 2007 meet – and earned his first honor as the NJAC Men’s Cross Country Coach of the Year.
Puleo saw Salamon and Stewart both earn all-conference Second Team recognition in 2006, becoming the first Rutgers-Camden men to capture All-NJAC cross country honors. His team also placed two athletes – Stewart and Rachel McCormick – on the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Academic Fall All-Star team, an accomplishment that Stewart repeated during the fall of 2007.
Puleo, who brings a wide range of coaching experience to Rutgers-Camden, guided senior Joelle Diener to First Team All-New Jersey Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women cross country honors in 2005, when she won the overall championship at the NJAIAW meet. Diener also earned Second Team All-NJAC honors.
During his second cross country season at Rutgers-Camden in 2004, Puleo watched his women’s team finish fifth in the NJAC Championships. Diener earned Second Team All-NJAC honors, and also was one of four Raptors to capture All-NJAIAW honors. The 2004 Raptors also featured All-NJAIAW performers McCormick, Sarah Roberts and Erin Rajauski.
In Puleo’s first year with the cross country program in 2003, he saw Tina DiGiovanni become the only First Team All-NJAC cross country runner in Rutgers-Camden history. That honor came after Puleo helped revive a women’s program that was absent in 2002 due to a lack of numbers. While DiGiovanni’s success was the highlight of the Lady Raptors’ rejuvenated program, the men also saw a measure of success in 2003. Led by Chris McGowan, the men were able to field a complete team in all six of their races, only the second time the Raptors had a complete team in all their races since restarting the men’s cross country program in 1992.
Puleo is a 1984 graduate of Phoenixville Area (PA) High School, where he was a member of the scholastic wrestling program. He continued his education at the College of William and Mary before transferring to Elizabethtown College. He earned five varsity letters for the Blue Jays B three in cross country and two in swimming B and was named the cross country team MVP during his senior year. He graduated cum laude from Elizabethtown College in 1989 with a B.A. in English Literature.
 Since that time, Puleo has built a strong reputation among running circles, beginning with his first coaching job at Spring-Ford High School (Royersford, PA) in 1990. The founder and long-time owner of the Haddonfield Running Company in Haddonfield, New Jersey, he now owns and operates his Philadelphia Running Company.
Puleo added a prestigious honor during the summer of 2006 when he was named as the head coach of the U.S. Marine Corps Regional Running Program, the national team for that branch of the armed forces. The Marine Corps program is open to athletes stationed all over the world, but the team is capped at 12 athletes. Puleo is responsible for their coaching, while preparing them for everything from local competitions to events as big as the 2008 Olympic Trials.
Puleo has coached numerous post-collegiate runners, including Cassy Byrne of Pottstown, PA, whose debut marathon time of 2:40.28 was the 12th-best time for U.S. women in 2002. He also has worked with Sean Mick (Pitman, NJ/Delsea High School), a 4:04 miler, and Abby Dean (Philadelphia, PA), who finished fifth among all female runners in the Broad Street 10-mile Run in Philadelphia in May. Dean served as Puleo’s assistant cross country coach in 2003.
Puleo was the boys’ head cross country coach at Paul VI in Haddon Township from 2000-02, where he led his team to a trio of Olympic National Division championships and the overall Olympic Conference title in 2001. His team extended the school’s amazing consecutive dual meet winning streak, which started in 1980, to 216 straight victories. That string ended in 2007 at 244 victories, but the Eagles went 17-0 in dual meets under Puleo’s watch, finishing fourth, third and fifth in the state meet during his three seasons.
Puleo’s numerous contributions to the sport of running include serving as the race director of the 10K Ben Franklin Bridge Challenge and the Bancroft 5K. He also has served on the USATF’s Mid-Atlantic Chapter on the long distance running committee.
A resident of Phoenixville, PA, Puleo and his wife Lyndi, have three children.
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