Stan Wright (track coach)

After retirement, he remained active despite a stroke and multiple heart by-pass surgery. He died in Harris, Texas on November 6, 1998 following a long illness, two days after that of his cousin, Larry Ellis, who had been Head Coach of the 1984 United States Olympic Team and the former President of USA Track and Field Organisation.

In recognition of his years as a highly respected coach and administrator, he received the accolade in 1993 of becoming an inductee into the United States Track and Field Hall of Fame.

Wright nearly did not make the trip to Munich. He is reported as having been upset at being overlooked by the AAU as the Head Coach for the track and field team, and so no longer wanted to be a part of the Olympics coaching team. (Bill Bowerman of the University of Oregon was appointed instead.) However, when he was assured he would be a shoo-in as Head Coach in 1976, he did agree to be the Sprint Coach in 1972.

On the morning of August 31, 1972, all the three American representatives – Eddie Hart, Rey Robinson and Robert Taylor – in the 100 meters at the 1972 Munich Olympics qualified for the quarter-final round to be held later that day.

John Smith (American athlete in 1972 and later UCLA Assistant Coach) has stated that it meant for Wright that ‘his career was never the same after that”. and that “if everybody is going to blast Stan, well, the whole staff should apologize to the whole team for not making sure Stan knew the right time.”

In 1968 and 1972, he was the Assistant Sprints Coach for the United States Olympic Team.

He was later head track coach at Western Illinois University, between 1967 and 1969, and California State University, Sacramento, between 1969 and 1979. He acted as Athletics Director for Fairleigh Dickinson University between 1979 and 1985.

In 1966, he was appointed Head Coach for the USA track and field teams for dual athletics meets against Poland and the USSR that occurred a week apart in Los Angeles. This is notable because he was the first Black American to be awarded this honour

Wright was a track coach for 26 years at Texas Southern University, acting as Head Track Coach between 1950 and 1967. Here he coached four Olympians, including the winner of the 100 meters at the 1968 Olympics, Jim Hines. Jim Hines, from Oakland, California had deliberately chosen to study at Texas Southern because it had the best track and field team in the country.

Wright served in the United States Army Air Forces from November 1945 to January 1947. On leaving, he trained first as a coach at Springfield College, then earned a master’s degree in education at Teachers College, Columbia University. On graduation, Wright could not find work in the north of the United States so had to move south for a coaching job.

Stanley Vandorne Wright (August 11, 1921 – November 6, 1998) was the first African-American head coach of a United States track and field team. A noted college and national track coach and administrator over a forty-year period, he coached many Olympians and world record holders, for which, in 1993, he was rewarded with membership in the USA National Track and Field Hall of Fame. He achieved notoriety in 1972 as the man held responsible for the two American favourites for the 100 meters title, Eddie Hart and Rey Robinson, missing their quarter-final races. He was later exonerated in an official report to the United States Olympic Committee.

Born August 11, 1921 in Englewood, New Jersey, Wright graduated from Springfield College in Massachusetts in 1949.