Hall of Fame coach Clyde Hart, who guided some of the legends of U.S. 400-meter running to Olympic glory, died Nov. 1 in Waco. He was 91.
Best known as coach to Olympic 400-meter champions Michael Johnson, Jeremy Wariner and Sanya Richards-Ross, Hart also led his Baylor men to 20 indoor and outdoor NCAA 4×400 relay titles in his 56 year career. He was selected as a men’s assistant coach for the 2000 U.S. Olympic Track & Field team before stepping down to focus on his work with Johnson.
From 1996-2012, Hart coached at least one gold medalist at the Olympic Games, including four in the 400. Athletes under his guidance won more than a dozen Olympic golds and he produced 29 NCAA champions and more than 450 NCAA All-Americans. In 2004 and 2006 Hart was named Nike Coach of the Year by USATF, and he was honored with the USATF Legend Coach Award in 2017.
Active in the development area of the sport, Hart was named head coach for the U.S. men at the 1985 Pan American Junior Championships and served in several other international team positions through the years. Inducted into the USTFCCCA Coaches Hall of Fame in 2001, he was named International Coach of the Year in 2009 by the International Amateur Athletic Federation (now World Athletics).
Twice an NCAA indoor National Coach of the Year honoree, Hart was president of the collegiate coaches association from 1989-91. He was inducted into the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame, the Texas Sports Hall of Fame, and the Baylor Athletic Hall of Fame, and the track and field facility at Baylor is named in his honor.
Hart was born Feb. 3, 1934, in Eudora, Arkansas, and he starred in the sprints at Hot Springs High School, where he tied the state record in the 100-yard dash as a senior in 1952. As a senior at Baylor University in 1956, Hart finished second in the Southwest Conference 100y in a windy 9.3, was second in the 220y, and helped the Bears to gold in the 440-yard relay.
After graduating from Baylor with a degree in business administration, Hart returned to Arkansas and after working for a year took a coaching and teaching position at Central High School in Little Rock. That put him in the midst of one of the seminal scenes in American civil rights history.
Hart’s first day at Central, Sept. 4, 1957, was the same day the Little Rock Nine tried to attend the school, and the ensuing battle between state and federal governments led to the closure of all four Little Rock high schools for the 1958-59 school year. During that period Hart was assigned to substitute at area elementary and junior high schools.
During his time at Central, where his boys’ track and field teams rewrote the state record book, Hart earned a master’s degree in education from the University of Arkansas. He was hired as head coach at Baylor in 1963.
Hart is survived by his wife of 69 years, Maxine, and two sons, Greg and Scott. Services are pending.
