Alvaro Rivadeneira is entering his fifth year on the FGCU staff, spending four years as assistant coach for the men's and women's cross country teams and now serving as interim head coach for 2026.
During the 2025 season, Rivadeneira assisted FGCU in a fourth-place finish at the ASUN Championships on the women's side and an eighth-place finish on the men's side. Ozia Trujillo was named the Atlantic Sun Conference's Runner of the Year while claiming All-ASUN First Team honors after setting a new FGCU and ASUN Championship record of 16:20.2, becoming the ASUN's 2025 Individual Champion. Trujillo finished 11th with All-Region honors at the NCAA South Region championships, running 19:45.3 in the 6K race. That set history as she became the first FGCU runner to qualify for the NCAA Championships.
In 2024, Rivadeneira helped FGCU finish fifth at the ASUN Championships on the women's side and eighth on the men's side. Alise Petrova was named to the Third Team All-ASUN and set a new freshman record in the 5K alongside Karley Piers, who set a new FGCU program record. He also assisted in signing Ozia Trujillo out of Liberal, Kansas, who went on to become the 2025 ASUN Runner of the Year.
In his second season with the Green and Blue, Rivadeneira stepped up as the interim head coach during the Fall 2023 Cross Country season where the men’s team finished 15th in the NCAA South Region and seventh at the ASUN Championship. He also signed 2024 ASUN Freshman of the Year Alise Petrova from Riga, Lativa.
In his inaugural season, Rivadeneira paced Bramwell Havi to a new program record of 30:38 and Karley Piers to a 3rd best program time of 20:46.
Rivadeneira joined FGCU in 2022 and was the assistant coach for the men’s team that placed 16th at the NCAA South Region Championships.
Prior to coaching at FGCU, Rivadeneira had a private coaching business and a virtual run club during the 2020 pandemic.
Rivadeneira competed in cross country and track for two seasons at Webber International University, where he was second team all-conference cross country in 2016. He was The Sun Conference's 5,000-meter champion and helped the team to a 3rd place finish in 2018.
He was an Iron Warrior award winner with the cross country program for the Webber Warriors.
Rivadeneira helped Garden City Community College team to a 9th-place finish in 2015 at NJCAA indoor nationals 4x800 Relay & 10th-place finish at NJCAA outdoor nationals 4x800 Relay.
He helped train 800-meter All-American Sean Trainor and found his passion for coaching elite athletes during the coronavirus pandemic when he started a virtual running club. Rivadeneira is RRCA Certified & CPR Certified.
Rivadeneira aims to help the Eagles in recruiting efforts and maintaining a great team culture.
Personal records in the running events - the 800 meter 1:59:00, the 1000m 2:36.96, the 3,000 meter with a time of 9:16.55. He also holds personal records in Cross Country 8K 26:49.4
He was a Varsity Captain on G. Holmes Braddock Senior High Cross Country team where he was an individual state championship qualifier.
The Miami, Florida native received his bachelor's degree in business administration with an emphasis in Marketing from Webber International University in 2020 and is the son of Alvaro and of Gerry Rivadeneira. Rivadeneira resides in Fort Myers.
Updated 2/9/24
