Going for Gold

Summer Games Showcase Lopez’s Successful Track and Field Coaching Career

As athletes under his tutelage geared up to compete at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Victor Lopez, Rice’s head coach of women‘s track and field, took everything in stride.

Before heading to the campus track to train his cadre of Olympic hopefuls, Lopez would first have his morning coffee, a demitasse of black brew, which he concocts in his office with an espresso maker.
The Puerto Rican native has three of them a day, though he promises—regretfully—that they are decaf. But even if his 61-year-old body no longer tolerates some gastronomical luxuries, Lopez looks fit, buoyant, and younger than his age.

Lopez may appear laid back, but there is a quiet intensity about him, and his conversation is full of warmth and passion, especially when he talks about his student-athletes. “My athletes have become like my children,” he says, “an extension of my family.”

It is this caring, in part, that has made Lopez one of the leading track coaches in the world. “Victor is a star,” says Bobby May, director of athletics. “He has an international reputation in track and field, and he is a tireless worker and a real perfectionist.”

What makes Lopez a great coach, says Jim Bevan, assistant women’s track coach, is that he is a multidimensional person. “Just because he carries the title of track coach, Victor is not limited to that profession. He is a writer, a chef, a musician—a well-rounded person who brings all that worldly knowledge to his job.” Lopez, who describes himself as an avid reader of Hispanic literature and an art collector, takes pride in that facet of his personality.

In his 25 years at Rice, Lopez has built the women’s track team into one of the most successful programs in the country. When he started working at Rice in 1980, there were only six athletes on the women’s track team. Today, the team boasts about 30 members. Under Lopez, the Owls have produced NCAA champions in the shot put, the javelin throw, the triple jump, the 4x400-meter relay, the 400 meters, and the 400-meter hurdles. Lopez also took the cross-country team to the NCAA championships twice. Last year, the Owls won their third outdoor Western Athletic Conference (WAC) title in four years. In 2002, they won their third consecutive indoor conference championship.

Lopez, who coached the Puerto Rican track and field team at the Athens Games and was the national coach for the Olympic teams that competed in Barcelona in ’92 and Sydney in 2000, also has won a host of awards. He is a five-time WAC coach of the year and earned NCAA district coach of the year three times. He is president of the Central American and Caribbean Athletics Confederation and of the North America, Central American, and Caribbean Track and Field Coaches Association.

On Your Mark

So, it is no wonder that when the Summer Olympics come around every four years, some of the best track stars flock to Rice to train under Lopez. This year, he worked at Rice with four runners who hail from Canada, Puerto Rico, Jamaica, and Barbados.

Andrea Blackett, for one, represented her country, Barbados, in the 400-meter hurdles at the Summer Olympics. She graduated from Rice in 1997 and has continued training with Lopez after becoming a professional runner. At Rice, Blackett set the Rice record in the 100-meter and 400-meter hurdles. She also was a member of the squad that won the first NCAA relay title for the Owls in 1997. She competed in the Sydney Olympics in 2000 and made it to the semifinal round of the 400-meter hurdles.

When Blackett first came to Rice in 1994, she ran the 400 meters in 56 seconds. By the time she graduated, she had clocked an even better time than that—54.75 seconds—in the 400 hurdles, a more difficult event. Her best time in the 400-meter hurdles, is 53.36 seconds; the world record is 52.34. She gives Lopez a lot of credit for her success.
“I think I stand a very good chance of doing well in the Olympics,” Blackett says. “I am training hard, six days a week, and I am focused.” She also has Lopez on her side.

“Victor is not just a great coach, he is a great teacher,” Blackett explains. “He is extremely well-rounded, and he is very knowledgeable about track and field. He not only educates us about running but about life. He is very passionate about life, and he teaches us to enjoy music, different types of food, and different cultures.”

More importantly, Blackett says Lopez has the special ability to see the strength in each athlete. When Blackett arrived at Rice, her specialty was the 400 meters, but Lopez advised her to work on the 400-meter hurdles. “We tried it,” she says, “and it worked out perfectly for me.”

Rice senior Allison Beckford landed a spot on the Jamaican Olympic team competing in the 400 meters. Beckford has won the NCAA championship three times in the 400 meters: in 2002 and 2001 in the outdoor event, and once in 2001 in the indoor 400 meter.

In the five years that Beckford has been working with Lopez, she has grown to appreciate his style of coaching. “Other coaches might try to punish athletes. Victor takes a different approach,” she explains. “It amazes me how he talks to us and then gets what he wants us to do. He is respectful to us, and because of that, we are even more respectful to him. Some coaches don’t think about how athletes feel. He does.”

Lopez takes great interest in his athletes. “Sometimes they get upset because they think I’m too much like a father,” he says. Like a father, Lopez wants to make sure his student-athletes do well in their endeavors, especially in education. “I think my mission is to make sure that they graduate and become productive members of our society.”

All of his athletes have graduated from Rice but one. And the one who dropped out, Lopez explains, did so because she wanted to start a family. Recently, though, that same student called Lopez to tell him she was in Austin and would be finishing school there. “I feel this is my greatest achievement, to have all my students graduate from college.”

Encouraging his athletes to make the grade is only one part of Lopez’s concern for his athletes. Of course, he wants them to train properly as well. Lopez uses his 32 years of research to ensure he is getting the best from his athletes. He uses a combination of pedagogical approach, physiology, biomechanics, anatomy, and nutrition. Each Sunday, without fail, he follows his ritual of eating breakfast and then writing a training program for each of his athletes. His program is so detailed that he even knows the body fat percentage of each athlete, and trains him or her according to their body composition. “We are dealing with human beings, so I want to make sure that we are developing them properly.”

In 1980, Lopez created a training system that became so successful that he is now considered one of the leading training theorists and methodologists in the world. A member of the International Amateur Athletics Federation’s technical committee and coaches commission, he frequently is sought out for advice, not only in track but also in other sports. For example, the Chicago Bulls have used Lopez as a strength and conditioning consultant, and professional baseball players such as Jose Cruz and Jose Cruz Jr. have trained under him.

The method basically consists of lifting weights, jumping, and running sprints. Contrary to what some coaches think, Lopez firmly believes that it is better to lift weights before heading to the track. At the track, he says, the athletes go through a series of “little jumps” to enhance the elastic strength muscles. Then, short-distance sprints follow at close to maximum velocity. “This puts into use all the muscle fibers used in weight lifting and jumping,” he explains.

Beckford, the Jamaican running star, says Lopez’s system also focuses on endurance. “For me,” she says, “that’s helpful because, in the 400 meters, it is not how fast you go, it is how you finish the race. So, if I can finish the race strong, I’ll be there with my competitors, and I will be able to beat them.”

Get Set

Running, jumping, and staying in motion was always a part of Lopez’s life. He was born in 1943 in Caguas, Puerto Rico, a place known for producing talented baseball players. Lopez grew up in a working class neighborhood where no one had a television set and kids spent most of their time having fun outside the house. As a way to control his hyperactivity, Lopez developed a penchant for all sports played on the island: volleyball, soccer, baseball, and basketball. 

Until middle school, Lopez attended a Catholic institution run by nuns of the Notre Dame order. These religious women, Lopez says, understood very well that a good curriculum included physical education, and they encouraged him to participate in field day races. “The nuns did this for many reasons, but especially so we could relax and release some energy.”

Releasing energy was always a necessity for Lopez. He was so hyper that in school he would beat his desk to create music. He channeled his unbound energy to playing drums, and by the time he was 13, he was good enough to be invited to play with a big band. His father had to sign an affidavit permitting him to join the 15-member musical group. All through high school Lopez concentrated on two things: playing drums and running track.

In his senior year in high school, Lopez had the good fortunate of meeting Manuel Garcia, a coach who saw the running-star potential in Lopez. With Garcia’s help, Lopez became unbeatable in the 100 and 200 meters and was selected as part of the Puerto Rico’s junior national team to compete in Mexico, Guatemala, and Panama. Lopez came back from his Latin American tour undefeated. “I was like a hero,” he recalls. “Everyone wanted to interview me.”

Universities in the United States also wanted him, and in 1963, he accepted a track scholarship from the University of Houston. He lettered four years at UH, and during the summers he returned to Puerto Rico to compete with the national team. He won a bronze medal for his country in the 4x100-meter relay at the Central American and Caribbean Games in Panama City.

Before his senior year at UH, Lopez was drafted into the U.S. Army and served for three years, until 1970. He returned to Houston to finish
his bachelor of science degree in physical education in 1971. At that time, his second daughter from his first marriage was born, and Lopez needed a job.

He found it at as a physical education teacher at Douglas Elementary School, located in the Third Ward, where most of the children came from poor families and many from single-parents households. “I was so touched by the situation of seeing those kids living in that condition,” he says.

“I made it my mission to try to help as many as I could.” On his own time, Lopez organized after-school sports clubs such as baseball, basketball, and track to keep the kids out of the streets. “Everyone loved the idea: the principal, the teachers, the parents, the kids. It was a beautiful experience.”

While at Douglas Elementary, Lopez started working on his master’s
in physical education at Texas Southern University. He attended classes in the evenings, and on weekends, he played the congas for several Latin jazz bands in Houston to supplement his income. In 1973, he returned to his hometown in Puerto Rico to become the athletic director at the University of Turabo in Caguas. He stayed there until 1978, and then spent another year at the University of Puerto Rico System as a professor of physical education and head track and field coach.

Feeling the itch to study more, Lopez returned to UH to pursue a doctorate in physical education. In 1980, he was hired as a part-time track coach at Rice. As the only staff member for the women’s track team, Lopez was overwhelmed and did not have time to complete his doctorate. Still, he was thrilled to be at Rice, where he was quickly building a reputation as a winning coach. He became a full-time coach in 1982.

Go

After finishing his cup of coffee, Lopez heads to the Rice track with all the calm in the world. After 25 years of taking the same walk, Lopez seems content and eager to go at it again. “You’d think that over time he’d get tired,” says Beckford. “But he loves what he is doing, and he just keeps on going. I don’t know if he will ever stop.”

Lopez has no plans to stop anytime soon, and he has no plans to leave Rice either, despite the offers he gets every year from other universities. “The first thing is to strive for happiness,” he says. “Working at Rice has been the best experience of my life.”

And then he enters the track, and the world of running is his again.

—David D. Medina