(Story courtesy of Texas Lutheran University)
SEGUIN, Texas – Texas Lutheran University
will field three more intercollegiate athletics programs with the
addition of men's cross country, men's indoor track and field and
men's outdoor track and field, TLU President Dr. Stuart Dorsey
announced Thursday.
The inaugural season for TLU in men's cross country will take place
in the fall of 2014. The Bulldogs have never fielded a men's cross
country team.
The re-start for TLU in men's track and field will begin with the
start of the indoor track and field season in January 2015. The
men's outdoor track and field season will begin in February
2015.
TLU last fielded a men's track and field team in 1970.
The three new men's programs will compete as members of the NCAA
Division III and the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference.
"These new opportunities for TLU students to compete in
intercollegiate sports are immediate benefits of the new athletics
complex," Dorsey said. "Our women's track and field and cross
country programs have produced numerous conference and national
championships and are forces in the NCAA Division III. Building on
that history, we are looking forward to similar success with these
men's programs."
Darlene
Holland will add the head coaching duties for men's
cross country and men's indoor/outdoor track and field to her
current duties as head coach for women's cross country and women's
indoor/outdoor track and field.
"We are thankful that Coach Holland has agreed to take on the
challenge of coaching all of our cross country, indoor track and
field and outdoor track and field programs," said TLU Director of
Athletics Bill
Miller. "TLU Athletics will supply her and the programs
she will lead with additional assistant coaching help so that we
can quickly make these new men's programs as nationally successful
as our women's programs."
Dorsey announced in September that TLU would embark on a major
athletics building program that will include an on-campus football
and track and field stadium, a new softball stadium and
improvements to the current baseball facility – Katt-Isbel
Field. Construction activity on the athletics projects has
begun.
The construction schedule calls for the new softball stadium and
related facilities, including lights for Katt-Isbel Field, to be
ready in spring 2014. The football and track & field stadium
will be ready by fall of 2014.
TLU's addition of the three sports will bring the university's
total number of collegiate sports to 18. By the start of the
2014-15 academic year, the Bulldogs will field teams in nine
women's sports and nine men's sports.
TLU female student-athletes compete in soccer, volleyball, cross
country, basketball, softball, indoor track and field, outdoor
track and field, golf, and tennis.
TLU male student-athletes will compete in soccer, cross country,
football, basketball, indoor track and field, outdoor track and
field, baseball, golf and tennis.
In NCAA Division III women's indoor and women's outdoor track and
field, TLU has won a total of three individual event national
championships, collected 38 top-10 national finishes, and produced
50 All-Americans.
TLU's individual event national championships occurred in 2007 in
the women's indoor 4x400 relay, in 2008 in the women's outdoor
4x100 relay, and in 2010 with Briana Aiken in the long jump.
All TLU sports compete in the NCAA Division III and in the Southern
Collegiate Athletic Conference.