CIAA Hall of Famer LaVerne Sweat to retire from coaching on July 1
June 6, 2005
NORFOLK, Va. — Norfolk State athletics director Marty Miller announced Monday that LaVerne Sweat is retiring from her position as NSU women’s track and field and cross country coach, effective July 1. She will be replaced on an interim basis by Ronda Berard, who has served as assistant women’s track and cross country coach for the last 10 years. |
P. LaVerne Sweat |
Sweat will remain in her position as the athletic department’s senior woman administrator, where her duties will focus on the areas of compliance and academic enhancement.
“I’ve been in this business a long time, and I’ve enjoyed my tenure as coach at Norfolk State,” Sweat said. “I just feel that I have done all I can do, with the ultimate being an Olympic coach. I thought this would be a good time to give coach Berard the opportunity to step into my place. She understands what the program is about.”
“I accepted coach Sweat’s retirement resignation reluctantly,
because we’re losing an outstanding track and field coach,” Miller
said. “But I am happy to have her to assist me with other administrative
duties.”
Sweat has coached the NSU women’s track program since 1988. In that
time, she won a total of 10 CIAA championships (in cross country, indoor
and outdoor track) and two MEAC track championships. Sweat, a Norfolk native,
was the first female president of the CIAA in the 1980s. She was the NAIA
National Coach of the Year in 1981 and was voted NCAA Division II Coach of
the Decade in 1991.
Her ultimate accomplishment came when she was selected to be an assistant coach for the United States track and field team at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia.
Aside from her stint with the national team in 2000, Sweat was selected as head coach of the U.S. team at the World University Games in Bucharest, Romania, in 1991, and was head coach for the U.S. at the Junior Pan American Games in Winnipeg, Canada, in 1993.
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