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Track & Field Honored on Silver Anniversary Indoor Team

by LSUsports.net (@LSUsports)
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Track & Field Honored on Silver Anniversary Indoor Team

BATON ROUGE — The LSU women’s track and field program has been recognized by the U.S. Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association as the nation’s premier indoor squad on the organization’s Silver Anniversary Indoor Team released this week.

The team was decided by a panel of USTFCCCA coaches following this year’s NCAA Indoor Championships in Fayetteville, Ark., and is meant to compliment the NCAA’s celebration of 25 years of women competing in Division I championships.

Selection to the Silver Anniversary Indoor Team was based on performances at the NCAA Division I Women’s Indoor Track and Field Championships and consists of the outstanding individuals in each event as well as the top coach and most successful program over that span.

The Lady Tigers, who were also named the nation’s top squad on the Silver Anniversary Outdoor Team released this past year, have won 11 NCAA indoor championships as they own nearly twice as many as the next-best team. In addition, LSU athletes have won a total of 29 individual NCAA indoor titles along with five relay titles.

Guiding the Lady Tigers to much of their success is former head track and field coach Pat Henry, who has been honored as the outstanding coach on the Silver Anniversary Indoor Team following his selection on the Silver Anniversary Outdoor Team last year.

Henry led the Lady Tigers to 10 NCAA championships in his 17 years as head coach from 1988-2004, including a record five titles in a row from 1993-97. LSU also finished national runner-up on two occasions, and the 1989 national championship team featured four individual winners.

With the team’s unprecedented success under Henry’s tutelage, the program was also responsible for many outstanding individual performers and relay teams. Among the premier sprinters in the illustrious history of the Lady Tiger program is former LSU great Muna Lee, who was named the nation’s top performer in the 200-meter dash over the last 25 years.

Lee, who finished her LSU career as a seven-time national champion and 20-time All-American, won back-to-back NCAA indoor titles in the 200 meters in leading the Lady Tigers to team titles in 2002 and 2003. She also qualified for the U.S. Olympic team in the event in 2004.

Lee follows sprinter Dawn Sowell, jumper Sheila Echols and the Lady Tigers’ dominating 4×100-meter relay squad, who were each named members of the Silver Anniversary Outdoor Team for their outstanding performance at the NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships.

Sowell was also honored in the 200 meters as 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 was recognized for her efforts in the long jump in which she won an NCAA title in 1987 with a collegiate record mark of 22 feet, 9 ? inches, a mark that has not seen another collegiate performer approach within three inches.

In addition, the sprint relay team was recognized for its dominance in 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 a total of 12 national titles.

The women won their first sprint relay title in 1985 before recording eight straight victories between the 1989-97 seasons, including an altitude-adjusted collegiate record of 42.50 by Tananjalyn Stanley, Sowell, Cinnamon Sheffield and Esther Jones in 1989. They tacked on three more titles in 2001, 2003 and 2004, setting the low-altitude collegiate record of 42.55 in 2003.

The Lady Tigers have proven to be the most dominant collegiate track and field program over the last quarter-century as they have won 24 national championships both indoor and outdoor, while featuring an astounding 101 athletes who have earned at least one All-America honor during their career.