Menlo announced a series of coaching and athletic staffing changes this fall, bringing new leadership to several teams and reshaping the athletic department’s direction.
Buffie Ward
At the start of the year, Assistant Athletics Director and Menlo alum ‘89 Buffie Ward stepped down from her role after 28 years for personal reasons. “She embodies what we stand for. She strives for great sportsmanship, behavior and culture,” Athletic Director Earl Koberlein said. “She was also a great extension of me when I couldn’t be at games, practices or talking with coaches.”
Janelle Allen
Janelle Allen was named Menlo’s new Assistant Athletics Director. Allen most recently served as Stanford University’s beach volleyball director of operations last year. Before that, she attended Eastern Washington University, where she played both volleyball and basketball. During her time at Eastern Washington, Allen was a three-time All-Big Sky honoree in basketball. During her collegiate volleyball career, she set the school record in kills, Allen then played professional beach volleyball for 10 years before deciding to start coaching and eventually take on an administrative role.
Lauren Fendrick
Menlo also hired Lauren Fendrick, who will serve as the new middle school athletics director. As a former Olympian and professional beach volleyball player, Fendrick hopes to bring a new perspective to the middle school athletics program. “I am thrilled to lead this middle school athletics program and develop character through sport,” Fendrick said.
Fendrick’s volleyball career began at UCLA, where she played indoor volleyball and softball. While attending law school, Fendrick’s professional beach volleyball career really took off — she was invited to the 2016 Rio Olympic Games and won a silver medal at the
world championships.
Fendrick is eager to immerse herself in the Menlo community and attend different sporting events. “I’m really excited to get to know the students better. It’s such a great student body; they’re so energetic, curious and engaged,” Fendrick said. “It’s really an incredible group that’s been brought together here.” Menlo also announced that longtime middle school athletics coach King Christian left the school for personal reasons.
John Dagata
Over the summer, John Dagata, a seasoned collegiate track and field coach, was hired to take over as the Program Director for Menlo cross-country and track & field teams. Dagata has coached at multiple Division I schools, including UC Berkeley, Iowa State University, UC Santa Barbara and the University of Oklahoma. Dagata has also coached internationally, helping the United Kingdom team at the 2012 Olympics in London. He also worked with China as head coach for discus and shot put and spent seven years at the USA Track & Field Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista as resident coach for field events and director of operations.
He decided to transition from the collegiate level to coach at the high school level this year. “I think that at the college or pro level, there’s a lot of logistics and things that get in your way of coaching,” Dagata said. “So I was in the area and I saw this opportunity and reached out […] and so far it’s been exactly what I wanted it to be,” he said.
Dagata has experience working in every track and field event across his career, but also loves cross-country. “Cross-country is actually a secret joy for me,” he said. “When I was coaching at universities, I would often hang out with the distance kids and be amazed at
their competitions.”
Dagata is optimistic about the direction of the program after Menlo’s incredibly successful season last year, where the varsity boys cross-country team won the state championship and finished 15th in the country at Nike
Cross Nationals.
“We’ve got some real momentum from last year, and it’s a real challenge to develop more momentum instead of going backwards, so there’s some key decisions moving forward,” Dagata said.
