NORFOLK, Va. – Former Norfolk State University women's track & field and cross country coach LaVerne Sweat has been chosen as one of six inductees in the 2011 Class of the United States Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) Hall of Fame.
The other former coaches who were selected for the class of 2011 are Phil Esten (UW-La Crosse), Keene Fitzpatrick (Yale/Michigan/Princeton), Ken Foreman (Seattle Pacific), Craig Poole (BYU), and Bill Webb (Tennessee/Cal State Northridge). The six inductees will be enshrined at the USTFCCCA Convention on Dec. 14 in San Antonio, Texas.
Sweat was an integral part of Norfolk State's athletics department for nearly 20 years. She was the women's track and cross country coach from 1988-2005, and she retired as the school's senior woman administrator following the 2005-06 school year.
As the Spartans' coach, her teams won a total 18 CIAA championships between cross country and track & field in an eight-year span from 1988-96. The Spartans earned four runner-up finishes at the NCAA Division II Track & Field Championships in her tenure.
Under Sweat's guidance, the Spartans won two more conference titles after moving up to NCAA's Division I, capturing the 2000 MEAC indoor championship and 2001 outdoor championship. In addition, Norfolk State captured five runner-up trophies in the MEAC.
Sweat, a Norfolk, Va., native, was the first female president of the CIAA in the 1980s. Among her accomplishments in track and field was being selected as an assistant coach for the U.S. Olympic team for the 2000 Sydney Games.
Aside from her stint with the national team in 2000, Sweat was selected as head coach of the U.S. team at the World University Games in Bucharest, Romania, in 1981, and was head coach of the Junior Pan American Games in Winnipeg, Canada, in 1993.
Sweat was also the head coach at Hampton University from 1978 to 1988.
While coaching at Hampton and Norfolk State, Sweat earned the CIAA Track and Field Coach of the Year nine times. She was the NAIA National Coach of the Year in 1981 while at Hampton and was voted NCAA Division II Coach of the Decade in 1991.
