A Coach's Perspective

A Coach’s Perspective

I met Coach Todd Lane on one of the very first days that he had at LSU. I
needed to see about using the facilities for our summer workout program
that he had sent out a few weeks earlier. Although this was my first time
to meet him, he seemed like a very nice person and he welcomed me warmly
into his office. Coach lane is a thirty-four year old man with close
cropped hair and a physique that says he is still very active in
exercise. Coach Todd is a part of the six person LSU Track and field
coaching staff. He doesn’t have the biggest group of people to coach, but
he does work with some of the major point getters for the track team; he
is over the jump and multi-event people.

In addition to his job of coaching the jumpers, coach lane is also in
charge of recruiting more jumpers and multi’s to the team. He does so by
sending mail-outs, watching them at their meets, having them visit to
watch various sporting events, and also going to visit them at their
home. Coach lane is also in charge of maintaining the track and
equipment. He says that he loves to coach, and the reason that he got
into coaching was that he had very good mentors and coaches. He enjoys
the connection that is made between an athlete and a coach, and also
being sort of a teacher with a much larger classroom than that of a
regular professor. He also says that he loves the opportunity to provide
support to student athletes in their development as students as well as
people.

Todd loves to coach; he says that the rewards are very gratifying and
that he wouldn’t trade it for any other job in the world. While attending
grad school he thought that he wanted to be an administrator in
athletics, but while he was helping out with the Georgia Southern team,
he realized he wanted to coach. The reason for this was that he had good
mentors and coaches and he had a strong connection with them. Lane still
keeps in touch with all of his old coaches; one of his college coaches
was the best man at his wedding! Another coach of his was a reader in the
wedding. In college Todd thought he wanted to be a lawyer, “I think I
made a good choice”, he says.

Todd Lane grew up in many places, some of which include Missouri, North
Carolina, Wisconsin, Georgia, Saudi Arabia, and finally Iowa. He went to
high school in Iowa, as well as Luther College in Decorah Iowa. He
graduated from Luther College and then went to Georgia to attend
graduate school at Georgia Southern University, where he began his
coaching career.

Todd’s father worked for Proctor and Gamble, a personal hygiene company.
The reason for the move to Saudi Arabia was that P&G was starting a
pampers plant there and Lane’s Dad was in charge of getting it started.
Lane says that he loved living in Saudi, as well as the other places they
lived in Europe and Asia. He says that he has very fond memories of those
times, and would love to go back to visit, but just doesn’t see that
happening.

As a child Lane liked to play football, basketball, baseball, and soccer.
When the time for high school came, he continued to play basketball, but
picked up the two sports of cross country running and Track & Field.
After high school, Todd continued his Cross country running in college,
where he was an average runner who worked extremely hard. While on the
track team he met his wife of ten years Turena Johnson Lane. She, too,
was a runner, and this weekend she will be inducted into the Luther
College athletic Hall of Fame for her running.

Luther College was a school that Lane wanted to go to, not just one that
was close to home. One contributing factor to this was that he had
attended many cross country camps there, so he knew an older Norwegian
coach there. He was an inspiring man, and another reason that Todd chose
to go to Luther. Lane says that he wasn’t the most mature individual, so
he needed someone to look after him[the Norwegian coach].The college had
a very strong tradition in cross country, which was a very important
factor to Todd.

Coach Lane now resides in Baton Rouge with his wife and two dogs, Tanui
and Tulu, both named after two famous African distance runners. In his
spare time, Lane likes to run. He says that he enjoys the exercise and it
keeps him fit, healthy, and relaxed. Also among his hobbies are spending
time with his wife and dogs. Lane says that he loves to do anything
related to Track and Field, but has found golf to be a growing interest
now that he is here at LSU.

LSU, however, wasn’t the first coaching job Lane has had; the first was
at Georgia Southern University. While at Georgia Southern he was a graduate
assistant coach for cross country and Track in the 1995-1996 school year.
From nineteen ninety six to nineteen ninety seven he was the head cross
country coach/ assistant track coach at Cloud State University, a
Division two school. Cloud State is where Todd coached distance runners,
and got his start coaching jumpers. The cross country team needed a new
head coach and Lane needed an internship to complete his master’s degree,
so he took the job no one else wanted. The job at Cloud State also
brought him closer to his wife-to-be.

Lane got married in the summer of ninety seven, still coaching at Cloud.
Shortly thereafter he received a call that Georgia Southern needed the
position of head cross country coach filled. Georgia Southern was going to
start a track program soon and it looked to have a lot of potential, so
he took the job. It was a great opportunity for a higher paying job, and
a chance to coach a Division one school. While at Georgia Southern he
started a women’s track team within two years of getting there. He
coached the sprinters, jumpers, distance runners, and depending on the
staff at the time, the throwers. Eventually he moved to just sprinters
and jumpers, with his wife coaching the distance runners. At the start of
his career at Georgia Southern, he had to practice at a high school
facility, which was a pain in the rear he says, but during this five year
tenure he laid he foundation for Georgia Southern to build a great new
facility.

Lane left GSU for a job at ball state to coach sprints, hurdles, jumps,
multi’s, and throws. The head coach at Ball State left, so Todd was
appointed the interm. Head coach. He then received a call about a
position at the University of Miami that had just opened up. This job was
much more appealing than the one at Ball, so he took it. However, two
months after arriving in Miami, Lane received a call from Irving
Shexnayder, an important figure in the LSU and Baton Rouge community,
about the LSU jumps coach position he was vacating. Todd didn’t want to
leave Miami so soon, but LSU was a dream job he couldn’t pass up. He says
that it is a place that he wants to stay forever.

Todd did not live here when Hurricane Katrina hit, so it did not directly
affect him. He also did not have cable TV when it happened, so the only
way he knew about it was through the radio. He says the biggest effect of
the storm on him was that it made him realize how unprepared New Orleans
was for such a storm. He goes on to say that politicians love to point
fingers instead of putting those fingers to work on something more
productive. Coach lane was also here on a visit right after Katrina hit,
he says that he can remember looking out of Irving Shexnayder’s office,
the head jumps coach at the time, and seeing helicopters landing on the
limb strewn track.

At Georgia Southern, Lane was conference coach of the year two years in a
row. Last year at Miami, Todd was regional jumps coach of the year. Lane
had an athlete who was field event of the year indoors, and another in
the ACC outdoors. At GSU there was an athlete to win athlete of the year
indoors, as well as freshman of the year both indoors and outdoors.
During his thirteen year coaching career Lane has won many accolades,
something he hopes to add too while here at LSU!