TWU Home > Student Life > Athletics > 12/12/05
DR. LYLE HONORED WITH PRESTIGIOUS GIEGENGACK AWARD BY USA TRACK & FIELD
DENTON , Texas – Dr. Bert Lyle, former director of athletics, track & field coach and faculty member at Texas Woman’s University, was honored with USA Track & Field’s Giegengack Award.
Dr. Lyle recently received the award at the Jesse Owens Awards and National Track & Field Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony in Jacksonville, Fla.
“It was a great surprise. Of course I am very appreciative. The award is meaningful for life’s work,” Dr. Lyle said. “The ceremony was very nice. Sandra Farmer Patrick introduced me and told the crowd that I helped her set the American record as a hurdler.”
Named in honor of former Yale University coach and 1964 Olympic Team head coach Robert Giegengack, the award goes to an individual who has made an outstanding contribution to the development and success of USA Track & Field, and the larger community of the sport. In the past, the award has gone to coaches, officials, Association leaders, administrators, and others from all segments of USATF. The USATF Board of Directors votes to select each year's winner.
“It has been a lot of fun working with the athletes,” Dr. Lyle added. “For the last few years I have gone over film, times and distributed analysis of speed biomechanical techniques and made suggestions for training with elite athletes. Right now, I am doing research.”
Dr. Lyle was born in Tupelo, Miss. He earned his bachelor's degree from Duke University, a master's degree from Southern Methodist University, and a doctorate from the University of Texas at Austin.
His TWU track & field teams garnered three Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW) national championships, including the inaugural event, and his teams also won two track & field federation championships. In addition, Louise Ritter (’82), who is a member of the TWU Athletics Hall of Fame and a TWU Distinguished Alumna, won the high jump gold medal at the Summer Olympic Games in Seoul, South Korea, in 1988.
As well as serving as track and field coach from 1965 to 1988, Dr. Lyle also served as the director of athletics and as a member of the Kinesiology faculty. He was coach of the United States sprint, hurdle, and relay teams at the 1992 Summer Olympic Games in Barcelona, Spain. He has had a tremendous impact on track and field as Women's Development sprint subcommittee chair and as the elite sprint coordinator for the U.S. women.
Dr. Lyle was inducted into the inaugural TWU Athletics Hall of Fame class in 1994. Since his retirement from TWU in 1988, Dr. Lyle has resided in Denton, Texas, where he continues to turn out a prodigious amount of material on the science of sprinting and hurdling. Dr. Lyle and his wife Pris celebrated 50 years of wedlock last February. |
