BATON ROUGE — LSU track and field head coach Pat Henry bolstered his staff on Tuesday, announcing the hiring of Heather Van Norman, a former six-time All-American for the Lady Tigers in the early-1990s, as assistant coach.
“Heather will be a great addition to the LSU track and field staff,” said Henry. “She was a winner and a competitor when she was here as an athlete and has since gone on to a successful coaching career that has, fortunately, brought her back to LSU. We are all looking forward to having Heather rejoin us.”
Van Norman returns to Baton Rouge after spending the past three seasons at Georgia Tech as an assistant where she worked primarily with sprints and relays. Prior to that, she spent two seasons at Rice, where she guided the Lady Owls to the 1997 NCAA Indoor title in the 4×400-meter relay.
Van Norman began her athletic career at the University of Minnesota in 1989 before transferring to LSU, where she competed from 1991-93.
During her time in Baton Rouge, she helped the Lady Tigers to five NCAA team titles – three outdoors and two indoors. She enjoyed her finest season in 1993 when she ran on a trio of national champion relays for the Lady Tigers, running on NCAA champion 4×400-meter relay squads both indoors and outdoors and the 4×100-meter relay outdoors.
The 1993 NCAA champion 4×400-meter relay squad Van Norman ran on still holds the LSU record in the event eight years later, while the indoor group she ran on that year still ranks in the top five in school history. Individually, Van Norman still ranks in the top five in school history in the indoor 400-meter dash.
Van Norman earned a B.S. in fitness science from LSU in 1994.