Lewis & Clark College

Sarai Seekamp joins the Lewis & Clark cross country and coaching staff in the Fall of 2024. She comes to Lewis & Clark with a wealth of experience coaching and competing in the Pacific Northwest. 
 
Seekamp put together a strong first season on Palatine Hill. She was instrumental on helping plan for and hosting the 2024 NCAA DIII West Regional and 2025 Northwest Conference Championship Meet. In the fall, she helped the Pioneers cross country teams finish fourth at NWCs and both teams placed in the top-nine at Regionals. Seekamp played a large role in the Pioneers success in the short sprints and hurdles during the track & field season. She worked with sophomore Harrison Fung who won his first career NWC Title in the 400M Hurdles. The Pioneers placed 10 student-athletes on the All-Conference teams and broke six program records during the Outdoor season. 
 
She served as the head coach of women’s and men’s track & field at Jefferson High School in Portland from 2019-2023. Seekamp became the first female track & field head coach in Jefferson High history in the Spring of 2019 and enjoyed a strong four-year run leading the program. During her time at Jefferson, Seekamp tripled the size of the program and the Democrats posted 19 school records and over 80 top-20 finishes in school history across both teams. She coached the District Champions in the girls 4x100M Relay in 2023 and the quartet went on to finish seventh at the OSAA State Championship Meet and fourth overall at the Nike Outdoor National Meet. The relay team had student-athletes qualify for Junior Olympics. Her main focus was on building a stronger foundation and staff for the track and field program, specifically to recruit and retain female athletes and athletes of color, many of whom had never competed in track and field before. 
 
During her time at Jefferson, she also started student-athlete support programs like the Female Athlete Leadership group as well as Student Athlete Academy, a tutoring program designed to support athletes in maintaining academic eligibility and working towards GPAs of 3.0 and above. Seekamp also designed workshops to support junior and senior athletes across sports in learning about the post-secondary options for competing in sport including how to navigate the recruiting and application process across athletic divisions. This work was in addition to her role as a classroom English and Social Studies while at Jefferson. As a head coach, she also worked closely with the other eight Portland Intercollegiate League (PIL) high schools and head coaches to improve track and field policies and practices district-wide to better serve student-populations and programs. 
 
During the 2023-24 academic year, Seekamp lived in Galway, Ireland while working on her Master of Arts in Creative Writing at the University of Galway. She served as an assistant track & field coach with the school’s track teams and primarily worked with the team’s sprinters, jumpers and throwers. 
 
Prior to her time at Jefferson, she served as an assistant sprint and hurdles coach at Lincoln High School and a middle school cluster coach at Wells Youth Cluster in Portland.
 
Seekamp earned her Bachelor of Arts in English Literature with a minor in Education from the University of Portland where she was a member of the track & field team. She received her Masters of Arts in Teaching from the University of Southern California in 2017.