The Tribune

By BRENT STUBBS

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

AFTER taking over as the new head coach of the men’s and women’s cross country and track and field programmes last month, Rolando ‘Lonnie’ Greene didn’t waste any time adding another Bahamian flavour by introducing Norbert Elliott as an assistant coach with responsibility for the men’s sprints, hurdles and relays.

Purdue’s athletic director Morgan Burke hired Greene as the head coach on July 3. The latest announcement by Greene was made this week. Neither of the coaches, however, were available for comments when contacted by The Tribune at Purdue yesterday.

“Coach Elliott brings many elements to the table. He has a worldwide recruiting base and is excellent at identifying and evaluating talent,” said coach Greene of his new assistant on the Boilermaker’s athletic team coaching staff.

“He brings great things to Purdue University and is an outstanding coach, teacher, and mentor. To add him to our staff is exciting. I very much look forward to the future of Purdue track and field with coach Elliott on staff.”

With over 20 years of coaching experience, Elliott came to Purdue from Campbell University where he was the head track and field and cross country coach last season. Prior to his stint with the Camels, he was an assistant track coach at the University of Tennessee for seven years.

Elliott, a former national triple and long jumper, also served as the head track and field and cross country coach at Murray State University for two years, assistant track coach at the University of Georgia for nine years, and an assistant track coach at the University of Texas at El Paso for three years.

While with Tennessee, Elliott was the recruiting coordinator for Caribbean student-athletes. He also helped coach his student-athletes to 29 All-America certificates, two NCAA Championships, eight SEC individual championships, and five school records. His excellence with the sprints led Elliott to be named the 2007 Mideast Assistant Sprints Coach of the Year.

In all, Elliott has coached over 50 All-Americans and eight individual NCAA Champions.

In 2001, Elliott was selected the head men’s team coach of the Bahamas at the World Championships in Canada. There, he coached the men’s 400m World Champion, the women’s 200m World Champion and bronze medallist, and the men’s 4x400m silver medal team. Elliott’s international experience doesn’t stop with the World Championships.

In 2000, the new Purdue men’s sprints, hurdles, and relays assistant coached the 4x100m relay Olympic gold medal team in Sydney, Australia. He also coached finalists in the 100m and 200m dashes in those Olympics. Elliott has also coached the World Junior Champions team for jumps for the Bahamas in 2000 and the Bahamian World Championships women’s finalists in the 100m and 200m in 1999.

Johnson has also coached numerous World Championships medallists from the Bahamas and Iceland including in 1995 when he was the head coach of the Bahamas National Team at the Central America and Caribbean Meet in Guatemala.

At the time of his hiring, Greene said he was delighted to be a part of the Boilermaker programme.

“I am extremely excited about the opportunity to coach at Purdue, and I appreciate Morgan Burke, Calvin Williams and the search committee for selecting me. I look forward to the challenge of building a programme that is first and foremost competitive in the Big Ten Conference and, subsequently, nationally,” Greene said at the time on the Boilermaker’s website.

“As a coach, you always have an eye on other programmes and schools, and I appreciate the principles and values of Purdue and the Big Ten. Our goal will be to recruit student-athletes, first in the state of Indiana and then beyond, who share those philosophies and can help us develop a proud and successful programme. I fully believe that can happen at Purdue, and I can’t wait to get started.”

Greene comes to the Boilermakers from perennial track and field powerhouse Arkansas, where he worked with the women’s programme for the past 16 seasons. Most recently, he served as associate head coach in charge of sprints, hurdles, horizontal jumps and multi events. Greene was named the USTFCCCA South Central Region Assistant Coach of the Year in 2011 and 2012.

With the Razorbacks, Greene coached four student-athletes to five NCAA event titles, 29 athletes who earned 96 All-America honours, 16 Southeast Conference champions, two SEC Runners of the Year, an SEC co-Freshman Runner of the Year and two US Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches’ Association South Central Region Runners of the Year.

Promoted to associate head coach in 2000, Greene put together back-to-back unprecedented seasons in 2004 and 2005, when two of his student-athletes swept the 200-metre national championships at the NCAA Indoor and Outdoor meets the first year, then followed it with an Aneita Denton sweep of the 800-metre titles in 2005. The 2004 200-meter duo, Veronica Campbell-Brown and La’Shaunte’a Moore, were participants at the Athens Olympics.

Greene also was an active contributor in the middle distances, mentoring the Razorbacks’ 800-metre runners, including Denton, who became just the third woman in NCAA history to sweep national titles in both the indoor and outdoor 800 metres in 2005. She also posted the sixth-fastest indoor 800-metre time in NCAA history (2:01.96) and was the anchor of Arkansas’ 4x800-metre relay team that ran the fastest time in the world in 2005 (8:29.13).

Greene was recognised by his peers with the 2004 US Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches’ Association National Assistant Coach of the Year award. He also was named the USTFCCCA’s Mideast Region Sprint Coach of the Year in 2007.

In 2011, Greene had seven student-athletes garner 18 All-America honours, including four accolades each for Regina George, Shelise Williams and Whitney Jones.

Prior to his stint at Arkansas, Greene was an assistant coach with the University of Minnesota women’s programme in 1995-96. He was a men’s and women’s assistant at what is now Missouri State University from 1991 to 1995.

A native of Nassau, Bahamas, Greene (born November 4, 1966) earned his BS degree in criminal justice administration from Murray State University in 1989. He is married to former Razorback LaTayna Stewart and they have daughter, Charisse, three sons, Cameron, Isaiah and Jacob, and two grandchildren, Tylan and Caleb.