LSU coach Dennis Shaver joined the LSU track and field program 17 years ago as the sprinters coach under the legendary Pat Henry.
Since then, Shaver has coached 33 NCAA champion athletes, who have won 45 national titles; 18 Olympians, four of whom have won medals; and 48 Southeastern Conference champion athletes, who won 106 titles. He was also named the 2008 NCAA Women’s Outdoor Coach of the Year after the Lady Tigers won the national title that season.
“Our ultimate goal is to win championships,” Shaver said. “Of course in 2008 when we won the women’s championship, that was a highlight because primarily I had thought that group of women had worked extremely hard and really did deserve it.”
Shaver came to Baton Rouge after a four-year stint as an assistant coach at Auburn. He also spent six seasons as the men’s and women’s head coach at Barton Community College in Great Bend, Kan., In 1991, the women’s team won the first junior college “National Triple Crown,” sweeping the cross country, indoor and outdoor track titles.
“At any level, if you can be successful competing with those at your same level … it’s a great tribute,” Shaver said. “Track coaches are really unique from that the standpoint that you have to be a really good administrator to manage the total numbers of people that we manage.”
Shaver had no easy task following one of the most successful coaches in NCAA history. Henry won 25 national titles in his 16 years at LSU and was awarded NCAA Coach of the Year four times during that span before leaving for Texas A&M.
“What made the transition relatively easy for me was that I had been a head coach before,” Shaver said. “Number two was Coach Henry, being the excellent leader that he was. I learned a lot and was fortunate enough that he let me do a lot while he was here.”
Shaver took over the head coaching job in 2004, the year after Henry guided the men’s and women’s indoor programs to national titles, with the women winning for the third year in a row.
“The first year transition was a really smooth move,” said Bennie Brazell, LSU assistant coach and former track standout. “It really wasn’t that much of a transition, because you have to realize that Coach [Shaver] had been under Coach [Henry] for all those years.”
Brazell is the newest addition to Shaver’s staff, where he works with the sprinters and hurdlers. Brazell was also a member of the team in Shaver’s first season as head coach.
Brazell, a dual-sport athlete and member of the 2003 football national championship team, says his former coach doesn’t typically watch over his shoulder, but the coaches do maintain a close relationship.
“If I have a question, I always go to him,” Brazell said. “I feel like I always cover myself by going to talk to him, ask more questions, learn more things. Even when we’re eating I’ll ask him, ‘Hey Coach, is there anything I need to work on or improve on?'”
Assistant head coach and middle distance coach Mark Elliott joined the program a year before Shaver and has remained a staple for the Tigers ever since. He’s the only other remaining coach from the Henry era and the only one who has stayed with Shaver throughout his eight years as head coach.
“We’re still co-workers, but we went from being both assistant coaches to now he’s the head coach,” Elliott said. “Our relations stay the same. We all love LSU and want to see it do well and want to win, but it’s still that head coach-assistant coach relationship.”
Shaver has won only one national title as LSU’s head coach, but currently has the Tigers in position for another run at the championship, with the Lady Tigers currently ranked No. 2 and the Tigers No. 3.
“We’re constantly trying to improve the program from the fan base to the facility,” Shaver said. “It’s very important to us for our athletes to show improvement from one year to the next.”
 
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Contact Michael Gegenheimer at [email protected]