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GEISMAR - Longtime track and field coach Irving "Boo" Schexnayder has reached the pinnacle of his profession, having been named the jumps and multi-events coach for the USA men's track and field team for the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, China, this summer.
But Schexnayder certainly has not forgotten where he started.
Schexnayder coaches a group of international-level athletes in the morning, but takes a couple of hours every week to work with the jumpers and pole vaulters at Dutchtown High.
"It's a blast," Schexnayder said. "I've always had a soft spot in my heart for the developmental end which is why I used to really enjoy decathlon and heptathlon because I could teach things from scratch, and here I am back doing it again. It's just something I like. I like the building process of coaching."
Schexnayder, a native of Vacherie, got his start coaching football, track and cross country at St. James High for eight years. He moved on to Blinn College in Brenham, Texas, in 1992, helping the program win the NJCAA indoor and outdoor national championships his one year there.
Schexnayder served on the track and field staff at Southwestern Louisiana (now Louisiana-Lafayette) from 1992-95. During that time, the Cajuns won five men's Sun Belt Conference titles and one women's title. Ndabe Mdhlongwa also won the triple jump at the 1995 NCAA Outdoor Championships, becoming just the second USL athlete to win a national title.
<center><p><a href="http://www.ascensioncitizen.com/articles/2008/03/14/sports/sports01.txt" target="_blank">The rest of the story</a>
By Mike Kiral
The Weekly Citizen
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Schexnayder started his 12-year stint as an assistant track coach at LSU in 1995. During those years, Schexnayder coached 60 All-Americans. Among the athletes he coached were Walter Davis, the 2002 SEC Male Athlete of the Year and a United States and IAAF World triple jump champion, and John Moffitt, a silver medalist in the long jump in the 2004 Olympics.
Schexnayder left LSU after the 2007 season to become director of the CAP Elite Training Center in Baton Rouge.
Dutchtown track coach Bill Jones, who competed against Schexnayder when he was at Donaldsonville and Schexnayder at St. James, talked to him about becoming a coach with the Griffins.
"He and I and (Dutchtown assistant track and field coach) John Talley have been friends for years," Jones said. "We've always wanted to work together and now that he is not at LSU, he has some time and he still loves working at the grass roots level. He said he would like to give us a hand if time permitted. We were more than excited to be able to add him to the staff."
Schexnayder will coach the Griffins' horizontal jumps (long and triple jumps) and pole vaulters.
"At first, I don't think our kids realized the opportunity they were getting, somebody who is going to coach the Olympics," Jones said. "But now I think they do, especially with the more they have been around him and see how knowledgeable he is. They can already see improvement in their performances. It's just been great."
That improvement was evident in Dutchtown's first meet of the season, the Pit Stop Exxon Duck Roost Relays held at the end of last month. The Lady Griffins swept the top two spots in each of the pole vault, long jump and triple jump, while Justin Rivere captured the boys' pole vault. The Griffins also went two-three in the triple jump. Both squads took the overall team titles.
"That's one of the best coaches I've ever had," senior Jonathan Conner, who placed second in the triple jump and third in the long jump, said. "He knows exactly what he is talking about. If you in your mind think something is not right, he realizes it right before you do and helps you get it straight. I jumped my best jump ever last week because he helped me out a couple of days."
Conner said he and the other jumpers respect the experience Schexnayder has had in working with Olympic-level athletes.
"I try not to mess around and joke around and just get to work because I know if I work with him, I could possibly do something like that," Conner said.
Schexnayder will be returning to Beijing this summer after serving as an assistant coach for Team USA at the 2006 IAAF World Junior Championships.
"The thing I'm really excited about is just the honor of being selected," Schexnayder said of the Olympic team. "To have the honor of representing your country and to go to battle for your country, so to speak. And your peers selecting you really makes it special."
Schexnayder has served as chairman of the jumps program of USA Track & Field's Coaching Education Committee and has lectured nationally and internationally. He and Jones recently returned from speaking at the Wisconsin Track Coaches Association Coaching Clinic.
And while the Dutchtown coaching staff and athletes said they are glad to have someone of Schexnayder's experience on the staff, he said he was grateful they have given him the opportunity to coach again in high school.
"They are probably offering me more than I'm offering them by giving me the opportunity to come back and work with that level of kids," Schexnayder said. "It's a level I've always enjoyed. It's just rewarding to have the opportunity to do it again.
"I don't know if people realize how good the coaching staff is here at Dutchtown. I've done a lot of work and a lot of projects with them in the past. It was just a really exciting opportunity to have the ability to working with young kids and work with a great group of coaches like we have here.
"Both teams are going to be very good. I think they will compete very well at the district and regional and state level. There are a lot of really young talented kids so I really think this program will be on a big rise over the next two or three years."
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