 "Photo: Caleb Miller/The Daily Texan")
Editor’s Note: For the next week, The Daily Texan will highlight the best coaches on the 40 Acres and debate who reigns supreme atop the Texas coaching conglomerate.
If you want to get something named after you, you have to be one of three things: one of the greatest at what you do, an important historical figure, or Red McCombs or Joe Jamail — filthy rich and donate more money in one check than most of us will ever see in our combined lifetimes.
And that’s not just my opinion – look at the facts. Darrell K Royal , the greatest football coach in Texas history, who won three national titles, has the stadium partially named after him. But what’s the name of the field that the Longhorns play on? That would be the Joe Jamail Field.
And if you ever walk around on campus, nearly every building you see is named after old Texas regents or presidents who helped the University become what it is.
Enter women’s track head coach Beverly Kearney .
Earlier this year, U.S. Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association honored Kearney when they renamed their Women’s Division I Indoor Coach of the Year award after her.
How many other coaches on the 40 Acres have a national award named after them?
The Hall of Famer has been named Coach of the Year 35 different times throughout her coaching career, and has been inducted to the U.S. Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association Hall of Fame, and the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame.
Don’t think that all of these accolades are just handed out like candy. She’s put in her work, and the results show. Kearney has won seven NCAA National Championships in her 22-year career. That’s more than double what Royal did, seven times what Mack Brown has won, two more than Augie Garrido, and just two behind Texas swim coach Eddie Reese, but he’s been at Texas longer than Kearney has even coached.
To go along with those national titles, she also has 22 league championships spanning from the SEC to the old Southwest Conference and the Big 12.
Kearney needs a whole other house for all of her hardware, and so do all the athletes she’s coached.
She has led 37 different student-athletes to 52 NCAA national titles and has coached her fair share of Olympic athletes. Her athletes have accumulated 12 Olympic medals. Most recently, two of them brought home two gold medals and one bronze from the Beijing Olympics.
But being a great coach is more than titles. It’s about mentoring, teaching, being a leader and dealing with adversity. And when it comes to that, Kearney can’t be beat.
Back in 2002, she was in an accident which killed two of her friends and paralyzed her below the waist. She overcame that and can be seen walking around the track at times during practice.
She’s also a leader in the community, using her position as the first black coach in Texas history as a pulpit for delivering her message of overcoming adversity. She hosts an annual minority symposium for local students and also founded the Pursuit of Dreams Foundation .
As Babe Ruth said in the movie “The Sandlot,”“heroes get remembered, but legends never die.” Kearney’s role as a Texas legend will never die, and for as long as she’s on campus, neither will her title as UT’s greatest coach.
