Training

COACHING

Principal Coach

DAVE MILNER is the founder of Nashville Track Club and brings to the organization 23 years of coaching experience, at the high school, NCAA, and post-collegiate/pro levels.

Dave ran collegiately for Belmont University, and then, after transferring, SUNY-Cortland in upstate New York, where he was fortunate enough to come under the wing of legendary coach and exercise physiologist, Dr. Jack Daniels. He was, he freely admits, a very average runner, but a keen student of the sport.

Upon graduating in 2000 and moving to Seattle, WA, Dave, fell into coaching when his employer thrust a marathon training program he had acquired in front of him and asked him to head it up! The first thing Dave did was sign up for a marathon and a USA Track & Field Level I coaching certification so he wouldn’t feel like a fraud. Shortly thereafter, a high school coaching job came his way, and suddenly he was coaching over 100 runners with a wide range of ages and abilities. Soon after, he was hooked!

Since that time he has coached at various levels in Tennessee. At Brentwood High School, where for all three years there, he was voted Metro Cross-Country Coach of the Year, his boys’ team went undefeated against Middle Tennessee teams, and the boys won the State Championships on the track all three years. Individually, Sean Keveren picked up six individual state titles.

Then followed a four and a half year stint as assistant coach at Belmont University, during which he oversaw recruiting and the coaching of the middle distance squad. During that time, he also coached Sonja Friend-Uhl to a still-standing U.S F40 Masters Record at 1500m of 4:16.99 and an Olympic Trials qualifying mark.

In a brief period in East Tennessee, he oversaw the middle distance training at East Tennessee State University and helped the Bucs two their first conference title in outdoor track in two decades. He then served as assistant coach at King University as the Tornado qualified for their first ever NCAA Div.II National Cross-Country Championships.

Upon returning to Nashville in 2013, he embarked on a career in sales in the specialty running retail channel and did that for five years, and began coaching a few local runners individually. Those runners have ranged in ability to a runner aiming to lose 50lbs and complete their first ever 5K to local product, Quamel Prince, who Milner guided to 5th place and 9th place respectively at the 2018 U.S Indoor and Outdoor Championships and a 1:46 clocking at 800m.

He has seen the small track meet he started in 2003, the Music City Track Carnival (formerly Music City Distance Carnival), gradually grown into one of the most highly anticipated track meets in the country, bringing some of the best runners in the world to Nashville each year. The meet is now televised live and at the 2022 World Championships, some 63 MCTC alums from around the world competed.

Dave currently coaches cross-country and track at Harpeth Hall School, where he helped the Honeybears win the State Title in cross-country in 2021 and 2022 and finish 2nd in 2023. On the track they have won the team title in 2022 and 2023. Individually, athletes Dave has coached at Harpeth Hall have amassed 7 individual state titles .

Starting Nashville Track Club in 2018 was a natural extension of his work in the sport over the last two decades.

KATE VAN BUSKIRK is a professional runner who has represented Canada at major championships on multiple occasions.

Kate hails from Brampton, Ontario (a suburb of Toronto). She was an outstanding runner in high school with great range, being crowned national junior champion at 800m in 2004 and representing Canada in the junior race at the World Cross-Country Championships in France the following year. She also made the team for the 2006 World Cross-Country Championships in Japan in 2006.

She was offered a full scholarship at Duke University in began her career as a Blue Devil in the fall of 2006. As a senior at Duke, she was 2011 ACC Indoor runner-up in the Mile and a few weeks later placed 2nd at the NCAA Indoor Championships in that event (behind Jordan Hasay). Outdoors, she took the ACC 1500m title and placed 3rd at the NCAA Championships in the 1500m. She closed out her career as a Blue Devil a 2-time NCAA All-American, an ACC Champion, and a school record holder at 1000m (still standing) and Mile indoors (only broken in 2023), as well as being part of the quartet that still has the outdoor Distance Medley record. Her indoor 1000m clocking of 2:41.00 was an NCAA record for xx years.

Van Buskirk competed at the 2013 World Championships in Moscow, where she advanced to the semi-finals in the 1500m. The following year, exactly a month after winning her first senior Canadian title, she placed 3rd in the 1500m to claim a bronze medal at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.

In 2018, she broke the Canadian Indoor Mile record, clocking 4:26.92 in New York City, and went on to compete in the 2018 World Indoor Championships, missing a berth in the final by just a tenth of a second.

In 2021, Kate decided to take her talents to the longer distance of 5000m, an event she hadn’t contested in three years. In May, she clocked 14:59.80 in Irvine, CA, becoming just the 4th Canadian woman in history to break 15 minutes. She was then selected to represent Canada at the Covid-delayed Tokyo Olympics that summer. She clocked 15:14.96 in stiflingly humid conditions (75˚ dew point) but did not advance to the final.

A distinguished track career yielded personal bests indoors of 4:26.92 (#3 Canadian All-Time) in the Mile and 8:49.02 (#8) at 3000m. Outdoors, she clocked times of 4:05.38 (#20) and 4:28 (#12) in the 1500m and Mile respectively, and her 14:59.80 clocking at 5000m ranks her 6th all-time among Canadians.

Kate is now looking to resume her competitive career on the roads with a view towards a marathon debut in 2024. Having got some experience under her belt as an assistant coach at Sheridan College in Ontario in 2021-2022, she is keen to coach more and she will be an incredible asset for NTC.