BATON ROUGE -- LSU head track and field coach Dennis Shaver announced Friday that former University of Miami assistant Todd Lane will join his staff Monday to begin coaching one of the premier jumps and combined events groups in all of collegiate track and field.
Lane joins the LSU coaching staff after one season at Miami where he was voted the top women’s jumps and combined events assistant coach in the East Region by the U.S. Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association in a vote of his fellow regional coaches.
“I’m very excited to have Todd Lane join our staff,” Shaver said. “He has proven administrative experience and is an excellent technical coach. During the search for the best possible person to coach the LSU jumps and combined events group, Todd was willing to accept the challenges of the program, handle assigned administrative duties and recruit student-athletes into our program.”
The Hurricanes enjoyed unprecedented success under Lane’s tutelage during the 2007 season as he coached his athletes to a total of two All-America honors, nine All-Atlantic Coast Conference awards, five ACC titles and two current school records.
Seniors Brenda Faluade and Amy Seward swept postseason honors by being named the ACC Indoor Field Performer of the Year and ACC Outdoor Field Performer of the Year, respectively.
Faluade is the reigning ACC indoor champion in the triple jump and ACC outdoor champion in the long jump, while she was also an All-American performer in the triple jump with a seventh-place finish in the event at the NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships in June. She set a new outdoor school record in the long jump with a top mark of 21 feet, 5 inches.
Seward was also an All-American during the outdoor season as she finished seventh in the long jump at the NCAA meet, while also winning an ACC indoor title and an NCAA East Regional title in the long jump and an ACC outdoor title in the heptathlon.
Seward was named the ACC Meet Most Valuable Field Performer for her effort at the ACC Outdoor Track and Field Championships as she also earned all-conference honors in the long jump along with her heptathlon crown.
In addition, Viktoria Andonova proved to be one of the top high jumpers in the conference as she was crowned ACC indoor champion in the event after clearing a new indoor school record height of 5-11 ½, and Deandra Doyley earned All-ACC recognition in the long jump during the outdoor season with a second-place finish at the conference meet.
“I’m honored and humbled to join the coaching staff at LSU,” Lane said. “LSU is a program that has a great tradition of excellence that it has built and maintained over the years. I’m fortunate to have this opportunity, and I look forward to what the future has in store for LSU track and field.”
Prior to joining the staff at Miami, Lane served as an assistant coach at Ball State University of the Mid-American Conference where he also coached the jumps and combined events.
He had the opportunity to coach three MAC champions and a whopping 10 All-MAC selections from 2004-06. In 2006, he helped guide the Cardinals to a runner-up finish at the MAC Indoor Championships and a third-place showing at the MAC Outdoor Championships before being named interim head coach following the season.
Lane is not without head coaching experience as he was the head track and field coach at Georgia Southern University for five years where he oversaw the program from its inception in 1999.
He quickly established himself as the premier head coach in the Southern Conference as he was named SoCon Outdoor Coach of the Year in 2003 and 2004 after guiding Georgia Southern to back-to-back runner-up finishes at the Southern Conference Outdoor Championships.
“I’m looking forward to the challenge of working with one of the elite programs in collegiate track and field, and I just hope that I can help carry on the tradition that LSU has established over the years,” Lane said. “I will do my very best to work hard and uphold the expectations that Coach Shaver has for this program.”
Lane is a USATF Level I instructor and is Level II certified in the sprints and hurdles, jumps, throws and the multi-events. His wife, Turena, is one of the top marathon runners in the United States and has represented her country at the IAAF World Championships in Athletics.