Track and Field
- Title:
- Assistant Coach
* Click the camera icon at the top right side to see a photo gallery of Bill Lawson.
In his seventh year with the University of Oregon track and field program, Bill Lawson continues to help fuel the Ducks' drive towards Pac-10 titles and national honors.
The longest tenured Duck on the staff, he is nationally-known as one of the collegiate scene's most versatile, intelligent and hardest-working coaches. He returns as a recruiting coordinator for the men for the second straight season, and will oversee various administrative, student-athlete relations, event planning and travel responsibilities in 2005-06.
In 2005, as the Duck decathlon mentor, he helped UO nab its second Pac-10 team crown and fourth, straight top-two conference team finish. redshirt junior Andy Young finished second in the league decathlon (7,165), then followed with a top-10 effort in his second NCAA trip. Junior newcomer Cody Fleming added a fourth-place Pac-10 decathlon finish (6,980) and hiked his personal best by more than 200 points against his league rivals. Indoors, redshirt junior Ryan Voge scored All-America honors in his NCAA heptathlon debut (10th, 5,209), and ended the season ranked third all-time for UO with his indoor best of 5,445 points. Lawson's individuals also helped the Ducks to their best pair of top-10 NCAA team finishes ever - sixth indoors and ninth outdoors - and the latter marked UO's third ninth-place finish in five years.
Oregon's decathlon corps was undeniably the nation's best in 2004, and stepped up in the nation's biggest meets. Freshman Tommy Skipper debuted in the Pac-10 Championships off limited work and won Oregon's fourth straight Pac-10 title in the event with an NCAA automatic score of 7,589 points - a tally that also ranked him eighth all-time for UO and seventh among collegians in '04. Three other Ducks also came away with then-personal bests in the Pac-10 finale as Oregon cashed in 25 points in the team race with its 1-3-4-5 finish against the nation's deepest decathlete league, and included Andy Young (third, 7372), Gabriel LeMay (fourth, 7333) and Ryan Voge (fifth, 7245). LeMay and Young made NCAA debuts three weeks later and placed 11th (PR 7,517) and 13th (7,302) and bettered their pre-meet seedings by nine and three places, respectively (19th / 16th). Among UO's other NCAA outdoor qualifiers, Jeff Lindsey and Teddy Davis tied for third in the West Regional high jump to earn NCAA invites, and the former moved to fifth all-time for UO with his 7-1 3/4 leap.
Indoors in 2004 under Lawson's direction, Skipper finished second in the NCAA Championships pole vault (18-4 1/2) - Oregon's highest indoor finish in the event - behind the returning NCAA champion, and cleared 18 feet in four of his appearances including a then-school record 18-8 3/4. Also indoors, first-year Duck Leonidas Watson ranked ninth among collegians in both the Long jump and triple jump with indoor school records (25-5 1/2 / 52-10 1/4), and also took All-America honors in the NCAA long jump (ninth, 25-2 1/2). In the NCAA indoor showdown, the duo helped Oregon to a program-record four All-America honors and 18th place as a team - UO's second-highest NCAA indoor finish ever behind 2002. Three of UO's decathletes challenged for NCAA indoor heptathlon invites and ranked top-40 nationally - LeMay (17th, 5,443), Young (20th, 5,385) and Voge (40th, 5,194). Those NCAA provisional point totals earned them first, third and eighth in the Mountain Pacific Championships at Februrary's end, and ranked them third, fourth and fifth all-time for Oregon, respectively.
In the 2003 Pacific-10 Conference Championships, his field event crew scored 53 points and helped Oregon to its first team win since 1993, and his group also claimed two of the Ducks' three individual titles - Santiago Lorenzo (decathlon) and Adam Jenkins (javelin). At the national level, two of its three NCAA outdoor qualifiers claimed All-America honors - John Stiegeler (javelin, fourth) and Trevor Woods (pole vault, eighth) - and helped Oregon to a 13th-place team finish. Lorenzo graduated as a four-time, top-two Pac-10 decathlon finisher, one-time NCAA champion and two-time All-American, and two-time Academic All-American; and Stiegeler was also an NCAA champion and two-time All-American.
One of his most impressive coaching efforts came in 2002. His unit rallied to score 58 points in the Pac-10 finale and fuel Oregon's second-place Pac-10 finish - its highest league placing since 1996 - even without three returning Pac-10 champions (two of whom were national champions). All-American Billy Pappas became Oregon's ninth conference decathlon champion - and second in a row - and Adam Kriz netted a Pac-10 win of his own in the hammer. At the national level, he guided four individuals to the NCAA Outdoor Championships in four different events (decathlon, pole vault, hammer, javelin). Two Ducks qualified indoors, including pole vaulter Trevor Woods who took third in the NCAA finale with a clearance of 17-11 3/4.
In 2001, the Duck men climbed to ninth nationally and fifth in the conference led by NCAA champions Santiago Lorenzo (decathlon, 7,889 points) and John Stiegeler (javelin, 252-10). Lorenzo's score moved him to third all-time among Duck decathletes, while Stiegeler broke the school record and ended the year third among all Americans. The Ducks also featured All-America efforts by juniors Billy Pappas outdoors in the decathlon (eighth, PR 7,488) and Jason Boness indoors in the high jump (ninth, 6-11 3/4) - his third honor under Lawson's tutelage and his fifth NCAA trip. Altogether, the eight-event field event corps' five NCAA qualifiers contributed 21 of the team's 27 NCAA points, and 61 of the team's 86 1/2 Pac-10 points.
In his first season with the Ducks in 2000, his field event corps scored 2/3 of Oregon's points in the Pac-10 finale (47) - and one of only two schools to score in eight of the nine events he oversaw that year. High jumper Jason Boness raised the school record with his personal best in the Pac-10 Championships (7-5), then added his second All-America honor outdoors by taking seventh. Decathlete Santiago Lorenzo also stepped up at championship time with his second Pac-10 runner-up placing and All-America honors in his NCAA debut (fifth). At season's end, Lorenzo had upped his collegiate best by almost 500 points and ranked sixth all-time for the Ducks.
A former University of Northern Iowa associate head coach, Lawson was equally respected for his nationally-honored unit of jumpers, throwers and multi-event athletes during his 15-year tenure with the Panthers in Cedar Falls, Iowa.
At the NCAA level, he helped UNI athletes to 18 All-America honors, including three honors in 1999. That season, freshman high jumper Jason Boness finished 10th in the NCAA outdoor finale for his first All-America honor. Sophomore pole vaulter Jacob Pauli won similar recognition indoors and outdoors with eighth- and fourth-place finishes, respectively. As a squad, the Panthers tied for 42nd with 5 points in the NCAA team race outdoors, while in 1997, the squad finished 17th.
At the conference level the Panther programs claimed 132 individual crowns and 15 team titles combined in cross country (7), indoors (6) and outdoors (2). Among his former athletes, Devon Davis, Juri Rovan, Tim Suchan, Allan Walz and Jason McCleary were honored as conference athletes of the year.
Prior to his work at Northern Iowa, the Carthage, Ill., native spent three years at John Marshall High School in Rochester, Minn., coaching men's cross country, track and field, and women's basketball.
His athletic success carried over to his Northern Iowa athletic career as a four-time All-American from 1977-80, and still second-ranked on the school's all-time decathlon list (7,316 points). He was a two-time captain for the Panthers and competed in the Division II NCAA Championships in the decathlon, pole vault and triple jump four times in each event, and was inducted into the UNI Athletics Hall of Fame in October 2003. Lawson has continued to compete at the master's level, winning the national master's decathlon championship in 1987 and 1992, and has been runner-up four times. In 1997, he claimed the bronze medal in the world master's championships.
The Northern Iowa graduate has an undergraduate degree in physical education and a master's degree in physical education with a concentration in exercise science.
Lawson (2-22-57) and his wife, Jodie, have a daughter, Abbie (10-4-94), and a son, T.J. (1-25-97).
