UTRGV Athletics Hires Elijah Piñon as Assistant Strength & Conditioning Coach

The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV) Department of Intercollegiate Athletics announced on Monday the hiring of Elijah Piñon as an assistant strength & conditioning coach.

Piñon will work with the UTRGV football and women’s swimming & diving programs.

Piñon comes to UTRGV from North Texas, where he had been a graduate assistant strength & conditioning coach working with football and track & field since March 2023. Piñon has previous experience as a sports performance intern at USC, where he worked with the football performance staff from May 2022 to March 2023, at Cal State Fullerton, where he worked with Olympic sports during the spring of 2022, and at UCLA, where he worked with football during the summer and fall of 2021.

“We’re excited that Elijah is in the Valley,” UTRGV Head Football Strength & Conditioning Coach Don Sommer said. “His knowledge and experience will help push forward our strength and conditioning efforts towards our shared goal of a winning culture and attitude.”

Piñon graduated cum laude from Cal State Fullerton with a Bachelor of Science in Kinesiology (strength & conditioning concentration) in 2022. He is expected to earn his Master of Science in Kinesiology from North Texas in May.

Piñon is a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist by the National Strength & Conditioning Association. He is also American Heart Association FIRST AID/CPR/AED Certified.

“I am grateful to be a part of such a distinguished staff and for the opportunity to help prepare the football program make history this upcoming season while assisting the swimming & diving team as well,” Piñon said. “I’m extremely excited about the present and future of these two programs, and I’m eager to get to work helping set the foundation for this year’s teams and those that follow.”