Tom Heinonen, the head coach of the women’s cross country and track and field programs, announced Thursday that he will retire at the end of the 2002-03 track and field season.
“I really am lucky,” Heinonen said. “When I started at Oregon in the fall of 1975 I had never coached before. I was a graduate student. They needed a grad student to be the cross country coach and the assistant track coach, and the next year I was the head coach (of track), as a graduate student. I grew with the program.”
Heinonen is in his 28th year as head coach of the women’s cross country program and 27th year heading up the women’s track and field team. He first announced his decision to his team Wednesday afternoon.
“Most of the kids looked like deer in the headlights when I told them,” Heinonen said.
“We were a little surprised, but not shocked,” said junior Magdalena Sandoval, who runs for Heinonen on both his cross country and track and field teams.
“Running for Tom has been really great. He has an immense amount of knowledge and background and history. He knows his stuff,” Sandoval said.
Heinonen is one of three Oregon coaches to lead the Ducks to an NCAA title. His 1983 and 1987 cross country teams, as well as his 1985 track and field team, earned the national titles. He was honored as the NCAA Coach of the Year for each of the three years.

“The two NCAA cross country championships were really different,” Heinonen recalls. “One was they added up the points and we won — surprise! There were five teams right there. The next time we won with Annette Peters on our team, and we were ranked number one all season long. For that sport, it was just a monster pressure cooker at the end because all we could do was win or lose, and we won.”
Heinonen has a rich history with Oregon. He has seen three of his runners go on to the Olympics, and has had two in the World Championships. He has nine Pacific-10 Conference titles between the two sports — seven with cross country and two with track and field — and has been named Pac-10 Coach of the Year eight different times.
“I remember the first dual meet ever, with men and women, in 1977 with the Huskies,” said Heinonen. “We lost.”
For the upcoming year, Heinonen has big plans.
For cross country, “We’d love to get to nationals one more time,” Heinonen said. “There’s a lot of kids who worked really hard — 60 and 65 mile weeks this summer. We want to do well.”
Regarding track and field, he added, “we’d like to take one major step up from where we were last year, and last year was a pretty good year for us.”
So what are Heinonen’s plans for the future, after this year is over?
“Janet (my wife) and I have our health now, and we want to enjoy it,”
Heinonen said. “I have lots of energy and there’s plenty of volunteering that needs to be done. I’m going to do some, but we’re going to travel too.”
For now, Heinonen and his teams are
going to concentrate on this year.
“We’re going to try to do our very best,” said Sandoval. “Hopefully we’ll be injury-free and be able to do really well.”
Heinonen said, “Every time I do something, I realize this is the last time I get to, or have to.”