Oregon hires former Stanford track coach

EUGENE, Ore. – Former Stanford track coach Vin Lananna was named Oregon’s track and cross country coach on Wednesday.

Lananna replaces Martin Smith, who left the program in March less than a week after he led the Ducks to a sixth-place finish at the NCAA indoor championships. Smith has since become head coach at Oklahoma.

Lananna, 52, was track and cross country coach at Stanford for 11 seasons until 2003. For the past two seasons, he has served as athletic director and physical education professor at Ohio’s Oberlin College.

Lananna, a five-time NCAA cross country coach of the year, also was named an associate A.D. at Oregon.

“During all of our conversations, I could tell that Vin has a genuine respect for the Oregon tradition and legacy, and shares with me, and many others, the vision of what our program is capable of achieving,” Oregon athletic director Bill Moos said.

Lananna’s Cardinal teams won five NCAA championships. The 2002 men’s track and field team won the school’s first outdoor title since 1934.

Stanford’s men’s and women’s teams won tandem cross country titles in 1996, and the men went on to win championships in 1997 and 2002.

Lananna also coached the U.S. middle-distance team for the Athens Olympics. He is co-founder of the Nike Farm Team for professional middle-distance and distance runners, based at Stanford.

Oregon won the Pacific-10 Conference outdoor title this past season under its assistant coaches.