Lamar University Athletics

When fans think of Lamar track and field and cross country programs, the first person that has to come to mind is 20-year head coach Trey Clark, who restored one of the region’s most-storied programs back to a proud tradition since he took the helm on August 11, 1999.
 
The numbers tell the story.  He has 15 team titles as the head coach, 116 individual Southland Conference champions, 18 league Athletes of the Year and nine All-Americans. The Lamar graduate claims 11 Southland Conference Newcomers of the Year, 14 Freshmen of the Year, nine Outstanding Track Performers and eight high point scorers.
 
He has coached 40 current Lamar record holders and 125 athletes who currently rank in the top five in the school’s record books.
 
Clark, a former sprinter and hurdler for LU, first stepped on campus in 1988 and was named as an assistant coach under head coach Barry Collins.  He is the Cardinals’ sixth head coach in program that started in 1953.
 
Quite possibly one of his best accomplishments could be the restoration of Lamar’s distance program. The men’s side won its ninth championship in 10 years in 2015, and before that both programs swept the league in 2013 and 2014. The distance Cardinals have had at least one league Athlete of the Year since 2013, and had two in 2014 (Minttu Hukka and Sam Stabler).
 
LU gained its first distance all-American since 1969 when Francis Kasagule achieved in back-to-back seasons in 2006-07.  Since Samuel Kosgei (2008) and Johnsen (2012) have both done it.  As a team, the men were one spot away from earning an automatic bid to the NCAA Championships in 2014 and the women two spots away.
 
He was named as the Southland Conference Cross Country Coach of the Year in 2011.
 
On Clark’s watch, Lamar earned its first ever indoor all-American when Kosgei finished eight at the NCAA Championships in 2009 in the 5,000-meter run.  He has also coached two outdoor all-Americans in Joonas Harjamaki and Tom Wade.  Both won it in the 3,000-meter steeplechase.
 
During his tenure, Lamar has 40 individual indoor champions, including a run of four years (2006-09) when LU had the men’s mile run champion.  It also had the men’s 3,000-meter champion for four-straight years (2009-12).
 
On the women’s side, he boasts a four-year run of the distance medley relay (2005-08) and the 4x400 meter relay champions in 2000.   The Lady Cardinals also have five one mile run and 3,000 meter champions.
 
Big Red has 29 individual league outdoor champions, including the men’s 4x400 meter relay champions in 2003. From 2010-13, Lamar won three titles on the men’s 1,500 meter run and the women did it from 2006-07. Most recently, he led the women’s 4x1 team to LU’s first Southland Conference championship in that event, and helped Verity Ockenden earn honorable mention All-American honors in the 5,000 meters.
 
Even before his time as a head coach, he was an important piece of the puzzle as the assistant coach.  In his five years as an assistant, he worked with 33 league champions and 14 all-conference performers and worked with the two strongest parts of the program, relays and hurdles.
 
He led the 4x100 meter relay team to the 1999 Southland Conference championships, and guided Mark LeDoux to two straight conference titles in the 400-meter hurdles and ninth place finish at the NCAA Championships.  LeDoux had two appearances at the USA Track and Field Nationals as well.
 
Clark also helped Yamelis Ortiz, who joined the Lamar Hall of Honor in 2014, to the Olympics on Puerto Rico’s 4x400-meter relay team in 2000.  Ortiz was a four-time conference champion in the 400-meter hurdles.
 
The four-year letterman was an all-conference performer and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in kinesiology in 1993 and a master’s in the same in 1995. He served as a part-time assistant in 1994.
 
The Anahuac, Texas (Anahuac HS) native, is married to the former Laura Hughes and has two sons, Quade and Hayden.