CHARLES LANCON
Preserved from the University ofLouisiana site
There’s no doubt that the decade of the ‘90s in Sun Belt Conference track circles belonged to Louisiana-Lafayette's Ragin’ Cajun program, and there’s no reason to believe that there will be any major changes to that standing as long as head coach Charles Lancon has anything to do with it.
What the Cajun program has accomplished over the past several years has helped the Cajuns lay claim as a track and field power in the Sun Belt Conference and one of the top programs in the South, and it’s all happened since Lancon took over as head man of the Cajun program in 1989.
His efforts in bringing in top-quality coaches and athletes, blending some of the nation’s top performers with some of the best local and state talent, has brought nothing but success. Louisiana-Lafayette hadn’t claimed a conference track championship of any kind since the mid-1970’s before he took over the program for the 1990 season, and since that time they’ve outgrown the trophy case at the Cajun track office with a total of 17 conference titles including three of them in only the second year of his tenure as Cajun coach in 1991. Louisiana-Lafayette won both the men’s indoor and outdoor titles and the women’s outdoor title in the American South Conference that year, missing by only two points of taking a sweep of all four championships. The women’s crown was the first in the history of the Lady Cajun program.
The following year, Louisiana-Lafayette moved into the Sun Belt Conference, and the trophies began stacking up. Louisiana-Lafayette claimed both the men’s indoor and outdoor titles and the women finished second outdoors and third indoors in the Sun Belt’s first-ever year of track and field competition in 1992, and the Cajuns followed that with their best year in history in 1993 in sweeping all four conference titles in men’s and women’s indoor and outdoor meets — a feat not done before or since. Since then, it’s been virtually non-stop.
Conference titles haven’t been the only focus of Lancon’s programs, though, as several of his charges have found success on the national level. Louisiana-Lafayette has posted at least one NCAA outdoor All-American in nine seasons, including one national champion, two runners-up and one third-place individual finish in the last four years.
Louisiana-Lafayette finished 16th in the 1996 NCAA Indoor Championships and was in the top 40 at the 1996 NCAA outdoor meet after finishing in the top 25 outdoors in 1995.
For 14 times in the last nine years, Lancon has been honored with "Coach of the Year" accolades in the Sun Belt, including winning the "quadruple crown" in the league in 1993 with both the men’s and women’s honors in the league’s indoor and outdoor meets, and has won 11 honors in men’s combined indoor and outdoor competition. He’s also been honored as the men’s "Coach of the Year" in Louisiana seven times in the last 10 years by the Louisiana Sports Writers Association.
If familiarity with the program was a prerequisite, then Lancon was the perfect choice to lead Louisiana-Lafayette back to national notice in the track world, since it’s doubtful there is anybody more familiar with Acadiana-area track and field. Lancon officially took over the Louisiana-Lafayette program on Oct. 1, 1989, after three decades of service in the local prep track ranks.
Lancon was one of the most successful high school coaches in the state of Louisiana for almost 30 years prior to taking over the Louisiana-Lafayette program. After graduating from Louisiana-Lafayette in 1959, he immediately jumped into coaching, becoming the head track and field and cross country coach at Northside High School in Lafayette.
After establishing that program as one of the top in the area, he moved across town to Lafayette High, where he became a fixture in the state and made the Mighty Lions a force to be reckoned with. In all, his teams captured 16 district titles and five state championships in cross country, and claimed five district titles and one state runner-up slot in track and field.
He has already coached over two dozen All-Americans, including not only present and recently-graduated Cajun stars but also several former prep standouts who went on to collegiate success including Greg Duplantis, one of the nation’s top pole vaulters out of Lafayette High.
For his success on the track, he was selected as Louisiana’s Coach of the Year in cross country five times, as well as twice being named the national prep Coach of the Year in District V. He is also a member of the Lafayette Sports Hall of Fame.
A native of Ashton, La., Lancon is married to the former Beryl Richard and has one son, Kevin Charles.
Quote
Re: Coach (1989-2002) Charles Lancon
Originally Posted by ragin2112cajun
