BATON ROUGE – LSU boasts one of the proudest traditions in the hurdle events in all of collegiate track and field on both the men’s and women’s sides, and former national champion Eric Reid is certainly one in a long line of Tiger greats to strike gold with his performance at the NCAA Championships.
While running on his home track at the Bernie Moore Track Stadium in his final collegiate race at LSU in the 110-meter hurdles at the 1987 NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships, Reid became the first Tiger in program history to be crowned the national champion in the event after taking the tape in 13.51 seconds. It was his third career All-America honor in an LSU uniform.
Reid actually set the LSU school record in the 110 hurdles that would stand for 23 years as he set a career low of 13.50 during his senior season with the program in 1987.
Only now are Reid’s records being rewritten in the annals of LSU Track & Field, as junior Barrett Nugent became the new school-record holder for the first time with a clocking of 13.49 to wrap up his sophomore campaign in 2010 as the NCAA Outdoor silver medalist. Nugent then lowered that school record to 13.35 with his fifth-place finish at the 2010 USA Outdoor Championships held last summer.
It would also be 24 years before another Tiger would be crowned the NCAA champion in the 110 hurdles as Nugent recently ended the 2011 collegiate season with his first career gold medal at the NCAA meet.
On the strength of his outstanding four-year career at LSU from 1984-87, Reid was inducted into the LSU Athletics Hall of Fame as part of the Class of 2005. He is one of 21 track and field inductees into the Hall of Fame, which is more than any other LSU athletic program aside from football’s 57 inductees.
And the Reid tradition is sure to live on for years to come as Eric Reid Jr. follows in his father’s footsteps as an LSU student-athlete as he recently finished his freshman season as a member of the 11-2 and Cotton Bowl champion LSU football team. The younger Reid is one of the elite safety prospects in the country as he played in all 13 games for the Tigers in 2010 while finishing with two interceptions as a freshman.
In an exclusive interview with LSUsports.net recorded before the start of the second-annual LSU Track & Field Team Awards and Alumni Recognition Banquet on April 22, Reid talked about some of his greatest memories as a member of the LSU Track & Field program and its tradition in the sprint hurdles as he now watches Nugent take down the records he established more than two decades ago.
Reid also talked about the pride he feels in watching his son carry on his athletic tradition at LSU, and the pride he and his fellow LSU Track & Field alumni feel in seeing one another at the banquet each season.