Vin Lananna, who guided a track and field renaissance in Oregon that included four consecutive U.S. Olympic Trials, the 2014 Word Junior Championships and the 2016 World Indoor Championships, is leaving the University of Oregon.
Lananna, 66, has resigned as UO associate athletic director to become associate athletic director and head track head cross country coach at the University of Virginia.
He will assume his new job at Virginia this week.
“It evolved quickly,” Lananna said Monday afternoon. “I didn’t make the decision until yesterday.”
Lananna said he missed daily interactions with athletes after giving up his coaching role with the Ducks in 2012.
He was the U.S. men’s track coach for the 2016 Olympics. And, after traveling with the Ducks last year, Lananna realized how much he still had an itch to coach.
“Vin Lananna is legendary in track and field and cross country," Virginia athletic director Carla Williams said in a prepared statement. "He is a winner. He has won at every level throughout his career as a coach and as an administrator. He cares deeply about helping student-athletes reach their maximum potential in competition and in life.”
Lananna was a bombshell hire as associate athletic director, and head track and cross country and associate athletic director at Oregon in 2005.
He was brought in to succeed Martin Smith as coach. Smith was generally successful. But during his tenure the profile of the UO track team in Eugene dwindled.
Lananna changed that immediately, branding Eugene Track Town USA. In a seven-season stint as UO coach, he led the Ducks to two NCAA men’s cross country championships, one men’s and three women’s NCAA indoor titles. But he always had a bigger agenda in mind.
“I made a seven-year plan in 2009,” Lananna said. “It had 13 things on it. We completed 13 of 13. I’m proud of what we accomplished. And I feel the future at Oregon is in great hands.”
He led successful Eugene bids for the 2008, 2012 and 2016 U.S. Olympic Trials for track and field. As president of the TrackTown USA local organizing committee, he was given high marks for staging the trials at the University of Oregon’s Hayward Field. The 2020 Olympic Trials also will be held in Eugene at a reconstructed Hayward Field.
Under Lananna’s leadership, TrackTown USA brought the 2014 World Junior Championships to Hayward Field, and the 2016 World Indoor Championships to The Oregon Convention Center in Portland.
TrackTown USA and the University of Oregon staged the NCAA Outdoor Championships at Hayward Field in 2010, and for six consecutive years between 2013 and 2018.
Lananna led the successful bid that landed the 2021 World Outdoor Championships for Eugene, although Lananna and the bid since have come under scrutiny by the U.S. Department of Justice as part of a global corruption investigation.
Lananna was elected president of USA Track & Field in 2016. But he was put on temporary administrative leave in 2018 after the USATF board of directors learned he had been interviewed by the DOJ about the world championships bid.
Lananna, who filed a grievance over the board’s action, remains on leave. The grievance is expected to be heard this fall. Lananna said he has no intention of resigning his USATF presidency.
In the last two years, Lananna’s profile in the Eugene track and field community has diminished.
He is not part of Oregon21, the local organizing committee for the World Outdoor Championships. He stepped down as president of TrackTown USA in July of 2018.
“No doubt, that has been difficult,” he said. “I tend to be a little introspective. What this made me do is really think about what is import, what brings me joy. I’m passionate about getting athletes to perform.”
Before coming to Oregon, Lananna spent 12 seasons at Stanford, where he won four NCAA cross country championships and the 2000 NCAA men’s outdoor title.
More than anything, Lananna said, he wasn’t ready to retire and is eager to get back in the middle of the action.
“I want to see what the next chapter looks like,” he said.
-- Ken Goe
kgoe@oregonian.comVisit subscription.oregonlive.com/newsletters to get Oregonian/OregonLive journalism delivered to your email inbox