Photo by: Trevor Birchett/MSU Athletics
Woods Adds Three to Track and Field Staff
August 09, 2019 | Track & Field
by Brian Ogden, Assistant Coordinator/Communications
STARKVILLE – Mississippi State's track and field coaching staff is set with the addition of two new assistant coaches and a coordinator of operations, head coach Chris Woods announced on Friday.
Carjay Lyles will join the program from Southern California where he worked with the Trojans' jumps and combined events. He will handle horizontal jumps along with the short sprints and short hurdles at MSU.
Patrick McGregor will lead the Bulldogs' distance corps and serve as the head cross country coach. McGregor comes to Starkville from Kentucky where he was a volunteer assistant for the Wildcats.
"I'm excited to finally have the staff in place and start moving in the direction of competing to win championships," Woods said. "We now have a staff where everyone, either as an athlete, coach or both, has competed for conference and national titles."
Lyles arrives with a track record of national and international success across the sprints, hurdles and jumps. He is a two-time USTFCCCA Regional Assistant Coach of the Year and has coached two athletes to Freshman of the Year honors in Power Five conferences. Seven of his athletes have gone on to compete internationally in the last eight years.
The 2019 season saw USC's women finish as national runners-up at both the NCAA Indoor and Outdoor Championships while winning the both conference championships. He coached indoor and outdoor conference champion Earnest Sears in the men's high jump along with the women's indoor long jump champion Lanae-Tava Thomas.
In what proved to be one of the breakout performances of 2019, Lyles coached Puerto Rican Ayden Owens to a school-record 8,130 points in the decathlon, earning him Pac-12 Athlete of the Week honors. In addition to breaking the Trojan's 35-year-old record, that mark stood as the Puerto Rican national record, the NCAA freshman record and was the season's world best at the time.
In his lone year at USC, Lyles coached Trojans to six conference medals and totaled 67 conference points, while adding three marks to the Trojans' all-time top 10 in the jumps. His athletes earned five All-America honors.
Before his season at Kentucky, McGregor burst onto the coaching scene in his first full-time collegiate job at Samford, coaching Karisa Nelson to the 2017 indoor mile national championship in his first season. Samford's men and women finished second at the Southern Conference Cross Country Championships in his first year, and Nelson won the individual title.
In his two seasons at Samford, McGregor totaled nine individual conference championships in track and field along with one in cross country, sent five athletes to the NCAA East Prelims and coached his athletes to five Samford school records.
Both men had decorated collegiate careers. Lyles was an All-American in the triple jump at Tennessee and was a member of the Vols' 2007 SEC Outdoor Championship team and three top-five NCAA finishes. His personal best of 15.95m (52-4.0) still ranks seventh in Tennessee's outdoor record book and remains the best mark since John Tillman set the school record in the 1985 season.
McGregor competed at Texas for three years. In that time, he contributed to the Longhorns 2013 Big 12 Indoor and Outdoor championships by winning the individual 1,000m title indoors and scoring in the 800m outdoors. In 2017, while coaching at Samford he broke the record for the longest known streak of daily sub-five-minute miles set by his high school coach Devon Hind in 1979.
In addition to the coaching hires, Woods has added Bree Bennett to the staff as the Bulldogs' new coordinator of operations. Bennett comes to Starkville from Minnesota where she worked in the Gophers' academic center. She competed in the hurdles at Angelo State during her collegiate career before serving as a volunteer assistant coach at Georgia.
For more information on the Mississippi State track and field team, visit HailState.com and follow "HailStateTF" on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
STARKVILLE – Mississippi State's track and field coaching staff is set with the addition of two new assistant coaches and a coordinator of operations, head coach Chris Woods announced on Friday.
Carjay Lyles will join the program from Southern California where he worked with the Trojans' jumps and combined events. He will handle horizontal jumps along with the short sprints and short hurdles at MSU.
Patrick McGregor will lead the Bulldogs' distance corps and serve as the head cross country coach. McGregor comes to Starkville from Kentucky where he was a volunteer assistant for the Wildcats.
"I'm excited to finally have the staff in place and start moving in the direction of competing to win championships," Woods said. "We now have a staff where everyone, either as an athlete, coach or both, has competed for conference and national titles."
Lyles arrives with a track record of national and international success across the sprints, hurdles and jumps. He is a two-time USTFCCCA Regional Assistant Coach of the Year and has coached two athletes to Freshman of the Year honors in Power Five conferences. Seven of his athletes have gone on to compete internationally in the last eight years.
The 2019 season saw USC's women finish as national runners-up at both the NCAA Indoor and Outdoor Championships while winning the both conference championships. He coached indoor and outdoor conference champion Earnest Sears in the men's high jump along with the women's indoor long jump champion Lanae-Tava Thomas.
In what proved to be one of the breakout performances of 2019, Lyles coached Puerto Rican Ayden Owens to a school-record 8,130 points in the decathlon, earning him Pac-12 Athlete of the Week honors. In addition to breaking the Trojan's 35-year-old record, that mark stood as the Puerto Rican national record, the NCAA freshman record and was the season's world best at the time.
In his lone year at USC, Lyles coached Trojans to six conference medals and totaled 67 conference points, while adding three marks to the Trojans' all-time top 10 in the jumps. His athletes earned five All-America honors.
Before his season at Kentucky, McGregor burst onto the coaching scene in his first full-time collegiate job at Samford, coaching Karisa Nelson to the 2017 indoor mile national championship in his first season. Samford's men and women finished second at the Southern Conference Cross Country Championships in his first year, and Nelson won the individual title.
In his two seasons at Samford, McGregor totaled nine individual conference championships in track and field along with one in cross country, sent five athletes to the NCAA East Prelims and coached his athletes to five Samford school records.
Both men had decorated collegiate careers. Lyles was an All-American in the triple jump at Tennessee and was a member of the Vols' 2007 SEC Outdoor Championship team and three top-five NCAA finishes. His personal best of 15.95m (52-4.0) still ranks seventh in Tennessee's outdoor record book and remains the best mark since John Tillman set the school record in the 1985 season.
McGregor competed at Texas for three years. In that time, he contributed to the Longhorns 2013 Big 12 Indoor and Outdoor championships by winning the individual 1,000m title indoors and scoring in the 800m outdoors. In 2017, while coaching at Samford he broke the record for the longest known streak of daily sub-five-minute miles set by his high school coach Devon Hind in 1979.
In addition to the coaching hires, Woods has added Bree Bennett to the staff as the Bulldogs' new coordinator of operations. Bennett comes to Starkville from Minnesota where she worked in the Gophers' academic center. She competed in the hurdles at Angelo State during her collegiate career before serving as a volunteer assistant coach at Georgia.
For more information on the Mississippi State track and field team, visit HailState.com and follow "HailStateTF" on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
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