May 25, 2008
BATON ROUGE, La. -
Bill McClure, a former track and field coach and athletics administrator at Samford, passed away Sunday at his home in Baton Rouge, La.
Funeral arrangements for McClure are pending and won't be finalized until late Monday morning.
McClure served as head track and field coach and as an associate director of athletics at Samford from 1986 until his retirement in 1996. While at Samford, his teams won one women's Trans America Athletic Conference (TAAC) cross-country championship, finished second twice in the men's TAAC championships in 1994 and 1995, and produced seven Academic All-Americans.
McClure had a storied career, not only at Samford, but also at Abilene Christian University (Texas), the University of South Carolina and LSU. During his 47 - year career in athletics, McClure coached a total of 145 United States Track and Field Federation (USTFF) and NCAA All-Americans, and achieved the unusual feat of mentoring All-Americans in every event on the track and field schedule. He was an assistant coach in charge of the jumping events on the 1972 United States Olympic Team that competed in Munich, Germany.
McClure was a 1939 graduate of Abilene High School. He received a bachelor's degree from Abilene Christian in 1948 and master's degree from Hardin-Simmons University in 1951 after serving in the U.S. Marine Corps in the South Pacific during World War II. He was a captain and four-year football letterman for the Wildcats.
He coached at Stamford High School in 1948-49 before joining the ACU football staff of the late A.M. Tonto Coleman, later Commissioner of the Southeastern Conference. As backfield coach, McClure helped the Wildcats go undefeated in 1950, the only ACU team to ever do so. He was also assistant track and field coach under head coach Oliver Jackson for 13 years before being named head coach at ACU in November 1963.
Teams and individual athletes that McClure was associated with have held world records in the 100-yard dash, the 220-yard dash, the 440-yard relay twice, the 880-yard relay twice, the mile relay and the indoor pole vault. While at Abilene Christian, his teams won 22 major titles at the Texas, Kansas, Drake, Modesto and Penn Relays. His teams won seven conference championships in eight years in both track and cross-country, and as an assistant and head coach he helped produce three U.S. Olympians: sprinter Bobby Morrow, who won three gold medals in the 1956 Melbourne Games, quarter-miler Earl Young, who won a gold medal in the mile relay (1960 Rome), and pole vaulter Billy Pemelton (1964 Tokyo). McClure is a 1991 inductee into the ACU Sports Hall of Fame.
McClure moved to South Carolina in 1972, where he guided the Gamecocks to a 1974 NCAA Indoor third place finish and was voted NCAA Region III Coach of the Year. His two-mile relay team of Mike Sheley, Jim Schaper, and brothers John and Don Brown won the indoor championship, and Schaper finished second in the 880. McClure is also credited with beginning the women's track and field program at USC.
From 1976 to 1981, McClure coached 34 NCAA All-Americans at LSU and began the women's track and field program. During his tenure, the Tigers produced several SEC individual champions. His 1979 men's team placed second in the SEC Indoor Championships, fifth in the NCAA Outdoor Championships, and won the NCAA men's 4x400 relay as Greg Hill edged out the University of Texas anchorman in a photo finish on the Longhorn's home track. Coach McClure served from 1981 until 1986 as LSU Assistant Athletic Director in charge of facilities.
McClure was an influential figure in national track and field circles for many years. He served as Chairman and Secretary of the NCAA Men's and Women's Track and Field Rules Committee, was President of the US Track and Field Federation, President of the Southern Association of The Athletics Congress, a member of the United States Olympic Track and Field Committee, a member of the NCAA Indoor Championship Games Committee for many years and a consultant for the US State Department in Track and Field on goodwill trips to Mexico and Africa.
