Claremont-Mudd-Scripps Colleges

Nicolas Acosta enters his second season as an assistant coach with the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps cross country and track and field program in 2026. In his first year, he helped the Athenas to a third-place finish at the NCAA Cross Country Championships, and a sixth-place finish at the NCAA Track and Field Championships. 

His coaching also assisted in Elle Marsyla winning a national title in the 10000 and finishing as the runner-up in the 5000, while three Athenas earned All-America honors in cross country (Marsyla, Riley Capuano and Sadie Drucker), and two earned second-team All-America honors in track and field (Capuano in the 1500 and Hope Dragseth in the 10000). 

Acosta spent the last year a distance coach at local Bonita High School, his alma mater, where he was the head cross country coach and assisted with the track and field program. He led his boys' cross country team to the CIF finals, and took the girls' team to the CIF prelims as well, with an average 30-second drop in time for all of his cross country runners.

During his college career, Acosta ran for four years at Azusa Pacific on both the cross country and track and field teams from 2020-24, competing at the NCAA Division II level. At Bonita High School, he served as team captain. 

Acosta graduated from Azusa Pacific with a bachelor's degree in kinesiology.