BATON ROUGE — The LSU women’s track and field program is set to be honored by the U.S. Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association on Monday as part of the organization’s Silver Anniversary Team at its annual convention in San Antonio, Texas.
The Silver Anniversary Team, which was selected by a panel of USTFCCCA coaches following this year’s NCAA Championships in Sacramento, Calif., is meant to compliment the NCAA’s celebration of 25 years of women competing in Division I outdoor championships.
Selection was based on performances at the NCAA Women’s Division I Outdoor Track and Field Championships as the Silver Anniversary Team consists of outstanding individuals in each event, as well as the top coach and most successful program of the last 25 years.
The Lady Tigers have been recognized as the top program on the Silver Anniversary Team as they have captured 13 NCAA Outdoor Championships in the 25-year span, including 11 straight national titles from 1987-97 while adding two more titles in 2000 and 2003. The Lady Tigers have also earned a pair of runner-up finishes and a total of 19 top-10 performances.
Guiding the Lady Tigers to much of their success is former head track and field coach Pat Henry, who will be honored as the outstanding coach on the Silver Anniversary Team. In his 17 years at LSU from 1988-2004, Henry led the Lady Tigers to a total of 22 NCAA team championships, including 12 outdoor titles as well as 10 indoor championships.
With the program’s unprecedented success under Henry’s tutelage, he developed a number of student-athletes and relay teams into the premier performers during their careers in Baton Rouge. Among the many standouts who flourished at LSU were sprinter Dawn Sowell and jumper Sheila Echols, who have been named to the Silver Anniversary Team in their respective specialty events.
Sowell will be honored for her performance in the 200 meters, an event in which she won the NCAA outdoor title in 1989 in dominating fashion by clocking a collegiate record 22.04 in the victory. This mark shattered Merlene Ottey’s then 6-year-old record of 22.39, and no other NCAA champion has come within three-tenths of a second to Sowell’s mark.
Echols is set to be recognized for her efforts in the long jump in which she won an NCAA title in 1987 with a collegiate record leap of 22-9 ?, a mark that has not seen another collegiate performer approach within three inches.
In addition to the recognition of Sowell and Echols for their individual achievements, the Lady Tigers’ 4×100-meter relay team will also be honored for its dominance during the last 25 years. In the history of NCAA Division I women’s track and field, no other program has dominated an event the way in which LSU has dominated the sprint relay by winning 12 national titles.
The Lady Tigers won their first sprint relay title in 1985 before recording eight straight victories between the 1989-97 seasons, including an altitude-aided collegiate record of 42.50 by Tananjalyn Stanley, Sowell, Cinnamon Sheffield and Esther Jones in 1989. The Lady Tigers tacked on three more titles in 2001, 2003 and 2004, setting the low-altitude collegiate record of 42.55 in 2003.