Raffael Craig is in his second season as an assistant coach at Purdue in 2023-24 and coaches the jumpers and combined event athletes.
Five Big Ten medals, including one gold, and a Second Team All-American highlighted an impressive first year at Purdue for Craig in 2022-23. Under his leadership, Praise Aniamaka won the Big Ten outdoor triple jump title and followed it up with a ninth-place finish at the NCAA Championships. Freshman Bryanna Craig also took home a pair of Big Ten silver medals, in the indoor pentathlon and outdoor heptathlon, while Aniamaka (triple jump) and LJ Hill (long jump) also won Big Ten bronze medals indoors. Meanwhile, Craig coached his athletes to four top-10 marks in school history, including Bryanna Craig in the pentathlon at No. 4, the best mark by a Boilermaker since 1997, and Rieko Wilford at No. 4 in the triple jump with Purdue’s top jump since 2014.
Craig came to Purdue after one year as an assistant at Louisiana Tech and a season at Texas Tech. He also has 15 years of experience as a high school coach in New Jersey.
In 2021-22 at Louisiana Tech, Craig coached the Conference USA heptathlon champion, along with three additional top-six finishers outdoors, two in the long jump and one in the triple jump. Indoors, the school-record heptathlon and pentathlon marks fell, and Craig’s jumpers and combined event athletes totaled six top-seven marks at the C-USA Championships.
At Texas Tech in 2020-21, six Red Raiders earned All-America accolades including the NCAA triple jump champion both indoors and outdoors, Ruth Usoro. As a volunteer assistant at TTU, Craig also assisted Coach James Thomas as Usoro won a Big 12 title and broke the conference record in the triple jump and long jump, along with setting top-three marks all-time at the NCAA Championships in both events. Craig helped oversee 14 All-Big 12 honors and 12 top-10 marks in school history in his year in Lubbock.
Prior to his time as a collegiate coach, Craig spent 15 seasons at Millville High in Millville, New Jersey. His tenure was highlighted by a New Balance National Champion in 2019 by Bryanna Craig in the heptathlon. The 2019 New Jersey indoor and outdoor coach of the year, Craig coached his team to the state title that year. His squad won nine conference champions and 21 county champions, while 31 of his athletes earned All-America honors and nine won AAU or USATF national titles in his tenure.
A Big East pentathlon champion at UConn in 2000, Craig was a four-time All-Big East honoree as an athlete. He was inducted into the South Jersey Track Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 2013 and was an eight-time USATF Masters Indoor Track & Field national champion, in 2018 and 2019.
Craig earned his bachelors degree in liberal arts from Thomas Edison State College in 2005 and his masters degree in coaching and exercise science from Concordia University Irvine in 2020.
Craig comes to West Lafayette with his wife, Sheila, and they have five children, Bryanna, Autumn, Raffael Jr., Austin and Colette. His daughter, Bryanna, competed on the United States U-20 national team at the 2022 World Athletics U20 Championships and will be a sophomore with the Boilermakers in 2023-24.
