Oregon track and field assistant coach Kelly Blair LaBounty confirmed today to the Emerald that her contract was not renewed by the University of Oregon athletic department and that she will not return next season to coach the Ducks.
When Blair LaBounty, 36, arrived at the track and field offices at the Casanova Center Wednesday morning, she was met by associate head coach Dan Steele and assistant athletic director Bill Clever and was notified she would be let go.
Blair LaBounty said a third distance coaching position would be created.
Blair LaBounty was hired in the fall of 2005 and coached three Ducks – Ashton Eaton, Brianne Theisen and Lauryn Jordan – to all-American honors in three years. Junior Kalindra McFadden and Jordan broke school records in the indoor pentathlon in consecutive years.
Blair LaBounty was a former two-sport standout as a Duck during the mid-1990s, where she was an all-American heptathlete and played basketball. She was a 1996 Olympian in the heptathlon, finishing eighth. Oregon’s athletics Web site calls her “Oregon’s greatest female student-athlete ever.”
[email protected]