Cliff Rovelto is an internationally recognized authority in jumps and combined events. He has coached collegians for over 32 years. In his position as the director of track and field at Kansas State University, he has personally coached 56 athletes who have earned a combined total of 136 NCAA All-American certificates, and has coached 82 conference individual event champions. He was the 2001 U.S. Track Coaches Association National Coach of the Year and five-time Midwest Region Coach of the Year. He has also been a two-time Big 12 Conference Coach of the Year. In 2004, he was awarded the United States Women's Track and Field College Coaches Award for Service.
Rovelto has assisted with curriculum development for the USA combined-events coaching education program and also served as an instructor for the program. He is one of only two coaches in the United States to coach multiple combined-event athletes to over 8,000 (men) and 6,000 (women) points.
Rovelto has coached 14 individual Olympians, who have competed in the games on 18 occasions—six of these athletes have been high jumpers. At the 2004 Olympics in Athens, Greece, one of his athletes, Matt Hemingway, was a silver medalist, and another, Jamie Nieto, placed fourth. In 2012, all three men's team USA high jumpers were coached by Rovelto. Erik Kynard, a senior at Kansas State, won an Olympic silver medal.
Another of Rovelto's athletes, Jesse Williams, won the 2011 IAAF World Championship title in the high jump. Rovelto has also coached 18 USA indoor and outdoor senior national champions in the high jump. While at Kansas State, he has coached 23 Big 12 Conference champions, 49 All-Americans, and seven NCAA individual champions in the high jump.