E-mail Coach Spiker (zjs4@cornell.edu)
Zach Spiker returns to the Big Red for his third season as an assistant coach under Steve Donahue. During his first two seasons, Spiker's enthusiasm and knowledge of the game helped the Big Red to upper division finishes in the Ivy League. He has been instrumental in helping Cornell's recruiting efforts the last two years.
In 2005-06, Spiker helped the Big Red to its second consecutive winning season in Ancient Eight play for the first time 18 years. Adam Gore was named Ivy League Rookie of the Year and joined Lenny Collins on the All-Ivy second team.
The 2004-05 Big Red earned its highest Ivy finish in 17 years and claimed its first winning Ancient Eight campaign (8-6) since the 1992-93 season. The Big Red had two players named All-Ivy (Lenny Collins - first team, Eric Taylor - honorable mention) for the first time since 1997. The team's 13 wins overall was the most since that same 1996-97 campaign.
Spiker joined the staff in June 2004, returning to Ithaca after spending the previous two seasons at West Virginia where he served as an administrative assistant under head coach John Beilein, helping the team to a pair of Big East tournament appearances and an invitation to participate in the National Invitation Tournament (NIT) in 2003-04. While in Morgantown, Spiker was responsible for managing on-campus recruiting visits, opponent scouting, postgame film breakdown and overseeing the team's daily event schedules.
Prior to joining the Mountaineer staff, Spiker served from 2000-02 as a graduate assistant coach at Winthrop University in Rock Hill, S.C., helping the Eagles advance to a pair of NCAA tournaments after winning the Big South tournament in successive seasons.
While at Winthrop, Spiker was responsible for team travel, film exchange, directing camps, coordinating recruiting mailouts and managing on-campus visits. He was responsible for creating the school's first-ever coaches' clinic and the first-ever team camp.
Spiker played two seasons of basketball at Ithaca College before serving as a student assistant coach as a senior, helping lead the Bombers to the 2000 ECAC championship, the first such basketball title in school history.
Spiker graduated from Ithaca College in May 2000 with a bachelor's degree in communications and earned a master's degree in sport management from West Virginia in the spring of 2004.
The 29-year-old Spiker and his wife, the former Jennifer DePrez, were married this past summer. She is an assistant women's soccer coach at West Virginia.
