Track & Field 2002-03

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Sunbelt out door track championships

Louisiana came in second but just barely with 146.50 points

UNT won the meet by a razors edge of 01.75 more points than Louisiana.

Following Louisiana was ...
Western Kentucky with 127.75 points,
Middle Tennessee 116.50,
Arkansas State 88.50,
Arkansas-Little Rock 64,
Florida International 53,
South Alabama & New Orleans 38.50

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Veasey expected to be named Cajun head track coach
Dan McDonald / Staff Writer


LAFAYETTE - Lance Veazey, a member of UL Lafayette's track and field coaching staff since 1997, is expected to be announced as the school's head coach within the next two days.

UL athletic director Nelson Schexnayder said Thursday that an announcement on the post could come as early as Saturday, but did not indicate who would be hired.

"We have looked at the candidates, had a committee and talked to different people," Schexnayder said. "We've made a decision and will hopefully have an announcement by the weekend."

A source within the athletic department confirmed that Veazey was offered the position and had accepted. Veazey, who has been an assistant coach since 1997, declined comment except to say that he had been interviewed for the position.

The opening was created by the death of long-time Ragin' Cajun head coach Charles Lancon, who suffered a fatal heart attack April 13 during the Cajuns' spring season. Veazey was considered by most observers as the front-runner for the position.

"Obviously, with the circumstances, we were not going to take any action until after the season was completed," Schexnayder said.

Lancon had served as the Cajuns' men's and women's mentor since 1989, and Veazey served two stints under Lancon. He was a student assistant from 1990-93, earning his degree in 1992, and returned to UL in the summer of 1997 after two years as assistant track and field coach at Southeastern Louisiana.

Veazey, who also served on the staffs at junior college power Blinn College and at the University of Texas, was part of a Cajun program that had an unprecedented sweep of the men's and women's indoor and outdoor Sun Belt Conference titles in 1993. In his first year as a full-time coach, the Cajun men won their eighth straight conference outdoor title in 1998.

The track position is one of three head coaching spots currently open in the UL department. Women's volleyball coach Chris Campbell and men's and women's tennis coach Brett Schwartz both resigned during the school year, Campbell stepping down soon after the completion of his team's fall season and Schwartz leaving just prior to the start of the spring tennis campaign.

"We've been interviewing for the tennis position," said Schexnayder, who stated that the post will still oversee both men and women. "We're hopeful that in the next week or so we can make an announcement there."

Filling the volleyball post is more crucial, with the program seven weeks away from players reporting for preseason practice.

"We have conducted a few interviews, and obviously the sooner we hire somebody the better," Schexnayder said. "We're still not sure ... we're trying to develop good interest in the position and make sure people know about the opening."

TRACK FACILITY UPDATE: Schexnayder said Thursday that the UL department is waiting for preliminary drawings on the proposed new track and field/soccer complex.

"We've appointed someone to give us preliminary designs," he said, "and then we'll have an opportunity to make comments on it, talk about any changes we want to make, and then we'll go out on bid with it."

The complex, which will be located at the site of the present track, will not have to wait for funding approval if bids come in as expected, Schexnayder said.

"We've anticipated funding," he said. "We've got a pretty good guess as to what we'll need. When we have a design complete, we'll wait for the bids to come in and hope that they're what we expect."

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LOUISIANA'S TRACK AND FIELD MEN'S HURDLING CORP
DOMINATE AT BAYOU BENGAL

BATON ROUGE, - Louisiana's Ragin'Cajuns men's hurdling corp dominated at the Bayou Bengal Invite at the campus of Louisiana State. The Cajuns had four men compete in the fqualifyinger all ran qualifing times in the prelims.

Junior Lawrence Leben lead the way in the 60-meter hurdle finals in second place with a time of 8.16. Senior Ben Rogers was two spots behind him in fourth (8.24). He was followed by Greg Stewart in sixRoquemore) and Louis Roqumore in ninth (8.62).

Other highlights on the men's team included sophomores Jon-Erik Shanklin in the 400-meter dash and Kade Slaughter in the 200-meter dash. Shanklin ran his fastest 400 ofthirdseason earning him thrid in a time of 49.35, while Slaugther sprinted to a sixth place finish with a time of 22.87.

The women's team saw a good performance from junior Clarissa Johnson in the long jump. A weeks worth of practice benefited Johnson as she increased her jump by almost a foot, earning her fifth place with a jump of 18-03.75.

The Cajuns next meet will take them to the FebruaryInvite on Saturday, Febraury 8.
SOURCE ULSI

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LAFAYETTE - The Louisiana track and field team may have canceled its participation in several meets this year, but that hasn't kept high jumper Jeremy Hebert from setting lofty goals for both the indoor and outdoor seasons.

Hebert, a 2000 graduate of Delcambre High School, is shooting for 7 feet this year. He topped 6 feet, 8 inches in several meets last year.

"I set my goals pretty high," said Hebert. "I've jumped it in practice, but never in a meet."

Hebert has only two more shots at that height in the indoor season this year. The Ragin' Cajuns will take part in a meet at LSU next Friday, then in the Sun Belt Conference meet in Jonesboro, Ark., on March 1-2.

"We canceled a lot of our outdoor season and a lot of our indoor season too," said Hebert. "My main goal (coming out of high school) was to make it to the Olympics, but that's long-term. I think I'd like to get the school record."

Former Olympian Hollis Conway holds the school records (7 feet, 9 3/4 inches indoors and 7-10 outdoors, both in 1989). He also set the American mark of 7 feet, 10 1/2 inches set in 1991 after leaving the program. Hebert says he has spoken with Conway but has never worked with him on his jumps.

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BY CHRIS LANDRY The Daily Iberian

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JONESBORO, Ark. — Led by triple jump champion Lawrence Willis and a pair of all-conference performances from Lawrence Leben, Louisiana’s Ragin' Cajuns grabbed a fourth-place finish Sunday at the Sun Belt Conference Indoor Track and Field Championships.

Willis captured the triple jump title with a 50-11 1/4 effort as the Ragin’ Cajuns’ lone champion in the event. Leben finished second in the triple with a 47-1 1/4 effort and also finished third in the 55-meter hurdles finals with a 7.58 clocking.

Those two Ragers helped lead the men to a total of 63 points. Defending champion Middle Tennessee scored 157 points to easily outdistance host Arkansas State’s 100 total. Louisiana was just behind Western Kentucky's 66 for the fourth-place finish.

Jon-Erik Shanklin was a multiple-event placer for the Ragin' Cajuns, finishing fifth in the 400-meter (49.18) and eighth in the 200-meter (22.17) behind sixth-place teammate Kade Slaughter (21.96).

NEXT INDOOR MEET

LSU's "Last Chance" on March 7th

ULSI

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21 points good enough for ninth

Middle Tennessee tallied 108 points to edge North Texas (99), Florida International (98) and Western Kentucky (95)

There were bright spots. A school record was set, which exposed how tough the competition actually was.

Highlighting the Lady Cajun women’s effort was a school-record 17:50.85 performance by Jeanne Menard in finishing fifth in the 5000-meter. Menard also took sixth in the 3000.

The Lady Cajuns also had two placers in the 800-meter finals, with Leah Legere sixth (2:20.88) and Laura Credeur seventh (2:21.53).

NEXT INDOOR MEET

LSU's "Last Chance" on March 7th

ULSI

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BATON ROUGE — Ragin’ Cajun senior Ben Rogers got a second place, two thirds and a pair of fourth-place showings in the first five stages of Friday’s decathlon competition at the LSU Alumni Gold meet at Bernie Moore Stadium.

Rogers, competing in his first decathlon of the season, was the runner-up in the decathlon high jump with a clearance of 6-3 1/4, trailing only the 6-5 1/2 of McNeese State’s Edwin Billot.

Third-place efforts were achieved in the shot put (42-0) and 400-meter dash (51.47).

Also, Rogers was fourth in the 100 (11.30) and the long jump (20-11 1/4).

Today’s second day of the decathlon offers Rogers chances to score in the pole vault, discus, the 110 hurdles (his best event), javelin and concluding 1,500.

Other members of Louisiana’s track and field team will join Rogers here today at the meet, their second visit to the LSU campus this season. Nine teams join the Cajuns and host Tigers, including Tulane, New Orleans, and Southeastern.

Competition begins at 10:30 a.m. today for the field events and 1 p.m. for all running events.

The Cajun spotlight will be on junior Lawrence Willis in the triple jump, who showed himself worthy to compete last week when he won section B of the triple jump and finished third in section A at the Texas Relays.

The Cajun women have already had a successful season so far. They have set five new school records and continue to show improvement.

Senior Jeanne Menard and junior Natalie Gillis have broken the school record in the 3,000-meter steeplechase and the 10,000-meter run, respectively.

Both will go after the 5,000-meter record today. Also setting a school record but on the field this year is freshman Andre Bonvillian. The pole vaulter will have another opportunity to compete today.

Following the Alumni Gold Relays, the Cajuns will have a break. They will resume action on May 3 where they will once again have a split weekend at the LSU Tiger Twilight Classic and the Tulane Invitational.

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BATON ROUGE — Saturday was all about preparation for Louisiana’s track and field squad.

The Ragin’ Cajun and Lady Cajun squads are one week away from the Sun Belt Conference Championships, and Saturday’s outing in the annual LSU Twilight Meet gave the Cajuns a measuring stick for the league meet.

“We needed to see where we stand going into conference,’’ said Cajun head coach Lance Veazey. “We got a chance to see if everybody’s healthy and ready.’’

Obviously, Lawrence Willis is prepared.

The junior turned in one of the nation’s top marks in winning the triple jump with a career-best 53-11 1/4 effort, and less than 30 minutes after that was already talking about the league meet.

“I wanted to get a good mark to move up in the national rankings,’’ said Willis, “because next week’s all about points. It’s more important to score points next week than worry about big marks.’’

His wind-legal mark in the triple ranks him ninth nationally and is the best mark in the Sun Belt by almost two feet. He’ll go into next week’s event as a prohibitive favorite, and will also look to place in the high jump and long jump.

“It makes for a busy week, but it’s going to be fun,’’ Willis said. “Things are working out well right now ... all the hard work in practice and in the weight room is starting to pay off.’’

“For him, it’s kind of like turning on the switch,’’ Veazey said. “He had a great series today. It’s the kind of event that once you get a feel for it and a rhythm going, you can get good marks every time.’’

Willis’ effort was the top finish for a Cajun squad that got three third places in the men’s division of the non-scoring event. A total of 12 teams took part in the meet along with many unattached performers, but the Cajuns and New Orleans were the only ones aiming at a league meet next weekend.

The rest of the participating schools Saturday don’t have league meets for two more weeks.

“We had people that didn’t take part in a lot of events they’ll be in next week,’’ Veazey said. “We had last weekend off, and that’s a double-edged sword. We were healthy and rested up, but we were also a little stale. This meet helped us get back into the competitive mode.’’

It also gave two more Cajuns qualifying marks for the NCAA regionals May 30-31 at Columbus, Ohio. High jumper Jeremy Hebert hit a qualifying mark with a 6-9 3/4 in finishing fourth, while also posting the Sun Belt’s best mark this year.

And, Lawrence Leben reached the qualifying mark with a third-place 52.57 effort in the 400-meter hurdles.

Louisiana now has 10 NCAA regional qualifiers — eight men and two women — and will hope for more beginning next Friday in the Sun Belt meet in Denton, Texas. All conference individual champions qualify for the NCAA regional.

The other third places came from Greg Stewart with a 14.58 in the 110 hurdles, and from the 4x100-meter relay squad of Kade Slaughter, Jon-Erik Shanklin, Nick Judice and Louis Roqumore with a season-best 41.19 time.

Jeanne Menard, one of the Lady Cajuns’ two regional qualifiers, had the top finish for the women’s squad with a fourth-place finish in the 1500-meter in 4:46.52. Natalie Gillis was sixth in the 1500 in 4:47.91 and Stacey Young was sixth in the 800 in 2:15.46 as the other top women’s finishers.

“All our distance runners have been working in the heat,’’ said Cajun distance coach Tim Lemaire, “but they bounced back and all ran pretty well. Six of the seven girls that ran the 1500 had personal bests.’’

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Advertiser
Dan McDonald
dmcdonald@lafayette.gannett.com

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COLUMBUS, Ohio — The Louisiana track and field squad will take part in some history today.

Ten members of the Ragin' Cajun squad will participate in the first-ever regional round of the NCAA Track and Field Championships, with the Mideast Region hosted by Ohio State.

In the past, the field for the NCAA outdoor championships, scheduled June 11-14 in Sacramento, Calif., was determined solely by mark. Athletes had to hit a finite performance mark to qualify for the national meet.

This year, for the first time, four regional meets are being held, with the top five finishers in each event qualifying to advance. Six at-large berths will also go to athletes who fail to qualify at regionals, based on season performance.

The regional qualifying marks were not as high as the national mark, the Ragin' Cajuns had seven men and the Lady Cajuns had three women who hit the regional qualifying.

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