Stan Wright

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.

College coaching career Born August 11, 1921 in Englewood, New Jersey,

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.

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 Sacramento State from 1975 to 1979 and Fairleigh Dickinson University between 1979 and 1985.

National coaching career 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

In 1968 and 1972, he was the Assistant Sprints Coach for the United States Olympic Team. A mad dash to the Olympic Stadium in an ABC-TV car resulted in two of three, Hart and Robinson, arriving too late for their quarter-finals, and the third, Taylor, arriving only seconds before his, so enabling him to run, but totally unprepared. An appeal by the United States team failed and the eliminations of Hart and Robinson stood.

Valeriy Borzov went on to win the Olympic 100 meters title with Taylor second. It remains a subject of intense debate as to how the result would have been affected if Hart and Robinson had run in the final. They held the two fastest times that year going into the Olympics and finished first and second at the Olympic Trials, ahead of Taylor.

The 4 × 100 meters sprint relay team coached by Wright (with Hart on the final leg) later would win the gold medal, but it was a "bittersweet ending" to the Olympics for all concerned. The report lays the blame on the late amendment to the schedule by the International Amateur Athletics Federation (IAAF) not being conveyed effectively to the responsible coaches. That it was a more general misunderstanding is given credence by the fact that Borzov later admitted that he nearly missed his quarter-final,

Wright was made to feel the scapegoat, particularly after a television interview with Howard Cosell on ABC television after the Olympics that many felt, including Wright, was more an excoriation and less an interview. Wright has been quoted as stating ”In the interview, I took the responsibility, but not as an admission of incompetence or negligence on my part. I took the responsibility to get the athletes off the hook because it wasn’t their responsibility and they didn’t act irresponsibly.”. 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.

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 the death 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.