KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Former LSU head track and field coach Bill McClure is one of five coaches who was inducted into the United States Track Coaches Hall of Fame on Saturday, Dec. 7, in Kansas City, Mo., in conjunction with the U.S. Track Coaches annual convention. The Hall of Fame recognizes individuals who have made outstanding contributions to the sport in the United States.
McClure coached 34 NCAA All-Americans at LSU from 1976 to 1981, and began the women’s track and field program. His 1979 men’s team placed second in the SEC Indoor Championships, fifth in the NCAA Outdoor Championships, and won the NCAA men’s 4×400 relay as Greg Hill edged out the University of Texas anchorman in a photo finish on the Longhorn’s home track.
Now retired and living in Baton Rouge, McClure was an influential figure in national track and field circles for many years. He served as Chairman and Secretary of the NCAA Men’s and Women’s Track and Field Rules Committee, was President of the US Track and Field Federation, President of the Southern Association of The Athletics Congress, a member of the United States Olympic Track and Field Committee, a member of the NCAA Indoor Championship Games Committee for many years, and a consultant for the US State Department in Track and Field on goodwill trips to Mexico and Africa.
During his 47 year career in athletics, McClure coached track and field at Abilene Christian University (TX), the University of South Carolina, LSU, and Samford University (AL). He was an assistant coach in charge of the jumping events on the 1972 United States Olympic Team that competed in Munich, Germany. McClure coached a total of 145 United States Track and Field Federation (USTFF) and NCAA All-Americans, and in his career achieved the unusual feat of mentoring All-Americans in every event on the track and field schedule.
Teams and individual athletes that McClure was associated with have held world records in the 100 yd dash, the 220 yd dash, the 440 yd relay twice, the 880-yard relay twice, the mile relay, and the pole vault indoors. While at Abilene Christian, his teams won 22 major titles at the Texas, Kansas, Drake, Modesto and Penn Relays, seven conference championships in eight years in both track and cross-country, and as an assistant and head coach he helped produce three U.S. Olympians: sprinter Bobby Morrow, who won three gold medals in the 1956 Melbourne Games, quarter-miler Earl Young, who won a gold medal in the mile relay (1960 Rome), and pole vaulter Billy Pemelton (1964 Tokyo). McClure is a 1991 inductee into the ACU Sports Hall of Fame.
Coach McClure is a 1939 graduate of Abilene High School. He received a bachelor’s of science degree from Abilene Christian in 1948 and M.Ed. degree from Hardin-Simmons University in 1951 after serving in the U.S. Marine Corps in the South Pacific during World War II. He was a captain and four-year football letterman for the Wildcats.
He coached at Stamford High School in 1948-49 before joining the ACU football staff of the late A.M. Tonto Coleman, later Commissioner of the Southeastern Conference. As backfield coach, McClure helped the Wildcats go undefeated in 1950, the only ACU team to ever do so. He was also assistant track and field coach under head coach Oliver Jackson for thirteen years before being named head coach at ACU in November 1963.
McClure moved to South Carolina in 1972, where he guided the Gamecocks to a 1974 NCAA Indoor third place finish when his two mile relay team won the championship, and half-miler Jim Schaper finished second in the individual race. From 1976 to 1981, McClure coached at LSU, and then served until 1986 as Assistant Athletic Director in charge of facilities. In 1986 he returned to coaching at Samford University in Birmingham, where he was also Associate Athletic Director until his retirement in 1996.