Gina Procaccio is in her 25th season as the head coach of the Villanova women’s track & field and cross country teams in 2024-25. She has been associated with the Wildcats for more than three decades as a student-athlete and coach, and throughout her career has built upon a strong foundation of excellence while strengthening every facet of a program that perennially ranks among the nation’s best. In addition to being the head coach of the women’s cross country, indoor track & field and outdoor track & field teams, Procaccio specifically coaches the women’s distance runners.
Villanova has won two national championships during Procaccio’s head coaching tenure – consecutive cross country titles in 2009 and 2010 – and has tallied a total of 15 top 20 team finishes at the NCAA Championships in cross country, indoor track & field and outdoor track & field. No other Division I program has come close to matching the Wildcats level of national success in cross country. Villanova has won a record nine national championships, with Procaccio a part of the four most recent NCAA titles as either an assistant coach or head coach.
Achieving team success at the NCAA Championships is a hallmark for any program. Procaccio has guided the Wildcats to six top 10 team finishes in cross country, three top 20 finishes indoors and two top 20 outdoor finishes as a head coach. On the conference level, the numbers are even more staggering. Villanova has won 17 BIG EAST team titles under Procaccio’s watch, including six each in cross country and indoor track & field as well as five outdoor conference crowns. Add in another nine team runner-up trophies and Procaccio has led the Wildcats to a total of 26 podium finishes at the conference championships.
On an individual level, the Villanova women’s track & field and cross country student-athletes have made a name for themselves worldwide and Procaccio’s distance runners have been All-Americans more than 100 times (103) and have won 174 individual events at the BIG EAST Championships.
Procaccio has coached individual NCAA champions in cross country, the mile and the distance medley relay indoors, as well as the 1500 meters, 3000 meters and 5000 meters outdoors. In 1999 while serving as an assistant coach for the Wildcats and working with the women’s distance runners, she helped Carrie Tollefson become the first person to sweep the outdoor NCAA titles in the 3000 meters and the 5000 meters in the same year. Villanova made history again in 2011 when Sheila Reid was the first to win the outdoor 1500 meters and 5000 meters at the NCAA Championships in the same season.
Reid was additionally a two-time individual NCAA cross country champion in consecutive years in 2010 and 2011, with her first championship in 2010 coinciding with the Wildcats winning the team title. Procaccio has also mentored NCAA champions indoors in the 3000 meters (Tollefson, 1999); the mile (Carmen Douma, 2000 and Emily Lipari, 2014); and the distance medley relay (Lipari, Christie Verdier, Ariann Neutts and Reid in 2011).
Success at the Penn Relays – the largest and most historic track & field meet in the world – has defined the Wildcats track & field programs for decades. Procaccio has guided Villanova to 18 titles at the meet during her head coaching career, including 17 Championship of America relay winners and heralded “distance triples” in 2014, 2017 and 2018 when the Wildcats swept the 4x800 meter relay, 4x1500 meter relay and distance medley relay.
It is beyond the conference and NCAA arenas that Procaccio has achieved some of her greatest successes as a mentor to Wildcats student-athletes. Six of her distance runners have gone on to represent their countries in the Summer Olympics. Her first two Olympians were Carrie Tollefson (United States) and Carmen Douma (Canada) who each competed in the 1500 meters at the 2004 Olympics in Athens. Villanova was represented by Marina Muncan (Serbia) in the 1500 meters and Sheila Reid (Canada) in the 5000 meters at the 2012 Olympics in London, as well as by Siofra Cleirigh Buttner (Ireland) in the 800 meters and Summer Cook (United States) in the triathlon at the 2020 Olympics (moved to 2021) in Tokyo.
Villanova distance runners have won four Honda Sports Awards as the top collegiate women’s athlete in their sport, with Reid a three-time winner (2010-11 cross country, 2010-11 track & field, 2011-12 cross country) and Tollefson winning the 1998-99 cross country award. In 2011, Reid was one of three finalists for the Honda-Broderick Cup which is presented to The Collegiate Woman Athlete of the Year spanning all three NCAA Divisions and all collegiate women’s sports.
In the two years before being named head coach (1998-99 and 1999-00), Procaccio was an assistant coach on the Wildcats staff and was responsible for coaching the women’s distance runners. During that time the women’s cross country team won the 1998 NCAA title, while the indoor track & field and outdoor track & field teams each posted consecutive top-15 NCAA finishes in 1999 and 2000. The indoor squad placed 11th at the NCAA Championships in 1999 and moved up to fifth in 2000, while the outdoor team finished eighth at the NCAA Championships in 1999 and 15th a year later.
Procaccio has instilled in her student-athletes the importance of a complete collegiate experience which includes excellence in academics and a focus on service within the campus community and beyond. In 2020-21, the Wildcats swept the BIG EAST Team Academic Excellence Award in both indoor track & field and outdoor track & field. The honor is presented to the BIG EAST team with the highest team GPA in their sport. Villanova has also had seven winners of the BIG EAST Scholar-Athlete Sport Excellence Award which is presented annually to one student-athlete in each conference sport who has excelled at a high level in both academics and athletics.
Additional conference honors for the Wildcats under Procaccio’s watch include Caroline Hamilton being the first Villanova student-athlete to win the Michael Tranghese Postgraduate Leadership Award in 2017. The honor is presented to just two BIG EAST student-athletes spanning all sports and comes with a $5,000 scholarship that can be applied to graduate studies.
On a national level, Villanova was the United States Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) Scholar Team of the Year in cross country in both of its national championship seasons in 2009 and 2010. Sheila Reid was a three-time USTFCCCA Scholar-Athlete of the Year in cross country (2010, 2011) and outdoor track & field (2011).
Two of Procaccio’s student-athletes – Nicole Schappert in 2010 and Stephanie Schappert in 2015 – have earned prestigious NCAA Postgraduate Scholarships, while in 2016 Bella Burda was the NCAA Elite 90 winner for Division I women’s cross country. The latter award is presented to the student-athlete with the highest cumulative grade point average at the site of each NCAA Championships competition. Reid and Burda were named Academic All-Americans during their Villanova careers and the Wildcats have had more than 175 selections to the USTFCCCA All-Academic Teams in cross country and track & field during Procaccio’s head coaching career
At the end of each academic year, Villanova Athletics presents the Nnenna Lynch Award to the varsity sport with the highest team GPA for the year. The award is named for the first Rhodes Scholar in Villanova University history – former women’s distance runner Nnenna Lynch – and either the women’s track & field or women’s cross country squads have won this honor 12 times during Procaccio’s tenure. The women’s track & field team has also had nine winners of Villanova’s top athletic honor, the Senior Student-Athlete of the Year award.
Procaccio is a 1987 graduate of Villanova who was a part of world record relay performances in 1987 and 1988. In 1987, she ran the leadoff leg of the 4x800 meter relay on a team which set a world, American and collegiate record with a winning time of 8:24.72 at the indoor NCAA Championships. Procaccio also ran the 800 meter leg of the distance medley relay on a team which set a world record with a time of 11:00.76 on February 2, 1987. Procaccio achieved individual success at the 1988 NCAA Championships where she earned All-America honors in the 1000 meters and set a school record with a time of 2:42.68. The mark would stand for nearly 29 years and wasn’t broken until one of Procaccio’s own student-athletes – Angel Piccirillo – set an NCAA record with a time of 2:40.82 on February 27, 2016 at the BIG EAST Championships.
Procaccio went on to have success on the international stage beyond her collegiate career. She competed in three World Championships, including in 1995 when she qualified for the final in the 5000 meters in the same year she was the United States champion in the event. Procaccio qualified for four U.S. Olympic Team Trials and finished as high as third at the USATF Cross Country Championships. During her prolific racing career, Procaccio won six individual Penn Relays watches and is the only athlete to win the Pen Relays women’s mile or 1500 meters five times as a pro. She was inducted onto the Penn Relays Wall of Fame in 2015.
In her most successful professional season in 1995, Procaccio became a United States champion for the first time and was ranked first in the country in the 3000 meters as well as being ranked in the top five nationally in both the 5000 meters (second) and the 1500 meters (fifth). It was during that year however, that Procaccio’s career was cut short by injury just before the 1996 Olympics when she would have had her best chance at becoming an Olympian. To this day, Procaccio views the lessons learned from dealing with her injury setback as powerful coaching tools when it comes to mentoring her student-athletes to achieve their full potential.
Procaccio had a great deal of success during two stints as a Villanova assistant coach (1994-97 and 1998-00) prior to being named the women’s track & field and cross country head coach on June 7, 2000. She was part of a coaching staff that helped lead the Wildcats to 10 individual national titles from 1994-00, including a national champion in cross country, five indoor national championships and four outdoor national titles.
In Procaccio’s first stint on the Villanova staff, Jen Rhines was the individual national champion in cross country in 1994 when the Wildcats won their record sixth straight NCAA team title. Rhines captured national championships in the 5000 meters both indoors and outdoors in 1995 and repeated as the outdoor champion in 1996. In all, Procaccio worked with 40 All-Americans during her assistant coaching stints. Additionally, she helped Villanova sweep the Championship of America distance relays in both 1995 and 1997 at the Penn Relays to go along with a 4x1500 meter relay title in 2000.
Prior to joining the Wildcats coaching staff, Procaccio spent one year as a graduate assistant at Tennessee in 1987-88 and one year as an assistant coach at Georgetown in 1990-91.
