BATON ROUGE — The LSU women’s track and field program was recognized Wednesday as part of the U.S. Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association’s (USTFCCCA) Silver Anniversary Team.
The team, voted on by a panel of USTFCCCA coaches following this year’s NCAA Championships in Sacramento, Calif., was meant to compliment the NCAA’s celebration of 25 years of women competing in Division I outdoor championships.
Selection to the Silver Anniversary Team was based on performances at the NCAA Women’s Division I Outdoor Track and Field Championships. The team consists of the outstanding individuals in each event as well as the top coach and most successful school over the past 25 years.
The Lady Tigers were recognized as the top program on the Silver Anniversary Team, winning 13 NCAA Outdoor Championships in the 25-year span. LSU won 11 straight national titles from 1987-97 and added two more in 2000 and 2003.
The Lady Tigers have also finished second twice have posted 19 top-10 finishes.
Individually, LSU has won a total of 46 NCAA women’s individual and relay titles, including an unprecedented 12 4×100-meter relay crowns.
Guiding the Lady Tigers to much of its success was former head track and field coach Pat Henry, who was honored as the outstanding coach on the Silver Anniversary Team.
In 17 years at LSU (1988-2004), Henry led the Lady Tigers to 22 NCAA team championships ? 12 outdoors and 10 indoors ? including 10 consecutive outdoor crowns from 1988-97.
With the team’s unprecedented success under Henry’s tutelage, he was also responsible for several tremendous individuals and relay teams. Among the many standouts in Lady Tiger history were sprinter Dawn Sowell and jumper Sheila Echols who were also named to the Silver Anniversary Team in their respective specialty events.
Sowell was honored in the 200 meters, an event in which she won the 1989 NCAA Outdoor title in dominating fashion. Sowell clocked a collegiate record 22.04 seconds in the victory, shattering Merlene Ottey’s then six-year old record of 22.39. Since Sowell’s win, no other NCAA champion has come within three-tenths of a second of her time.
Echols was recognized for her efforts in the long jump, where she won the 1987 NCAA title with a leap of 22-9 1/4. The mark, a now 19-year old collegiate record, has not seen another collegiate performer come within three inches of it.
In addition to Sowell and Echols’ individual recognition, the Lady Tigers’ 4×100-meter relay team was also honored.
In the history of NCAA Division I women’s track, no school has dominated an event the way LSU has dominated the sprint relay. The Lady Tigers have almost half of the available NCAA titles in the event, finishing first 12 times.
LSU won its first title in 1985 and then recorded eight 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 (42.55) in 2003.