Ron Allice Position: Director of Track and Field Experience: 12th Season At USC

Esteemed Director of Track and Field Ron Allice enters his 12th season at the helm of the USC program. With the outstanding coaching staff he has assembled, the Trojans have returned to prominence on a national level once again. In 2005, the Trojans were one of two schools to place both the men's and women's teams in the top seven in the country.

Under his guidance, the Trojan men's team has finished in the top 10 at the NCAA finals in eight of his 11 seasons, including a sixth-place finish last season. The Women of Troy won their first-ever national championship in 2001 under Allice, who has guided the women's track and field team to a top 10 finish seven times in 11 seasons, including a seventh-place finish in 2005.

The men's track and field team went on a run of six consecutive top 10 finishes under Allice (1995-2000), a feat not accomplished since the early 70s under Vern Wolfe. The men have also won three Pac-10 titles in the last eight years and last season won the NCAA West Regional. The hallmark of an Allice team is balance--after all, the sport he coaches is called track and field--and his tenure has been marked by squads that have been able to compete for championships at the national, conference and dual meet level. In 2003, his men's team won the Pac-10 championship (though it was later forced to relinquish the title due to an ineligible athlete) and placed third at the NCAA meet. The year before, his young men's team finished third in the Pac-10 and tied for 11th at the NCAAs. The previous season--2001--the Trojans were 12th at the NCAA meet and second in the conference, while snapping crosstown rival UCLA's dual-meet win streak at 22. The seven seasons prior to 2001, Troy finished no lower than seventh at the NCAAs (including three top-5 finishes) and won three Pac-10 titles. During his tenure, Trojan men have won eight NCAA individual titles, garnered All-American acclaim 76 times and set seven school records--not an easy task considering the glorious track and field history at USC.

Allice also runs one of the top women's program in the country, last year finishing in seventh place. Before 2004's 12th-place and 2003's 13th-place finish at the NCAA meet, the Women of Troy were the only team in the country to finish in the NCAA top three each of the previous four years while winning at least one NCAA team title. In 2002, his squad finished third at the NCAAs. It was led by the most celebrated sprinter in collegiate history, Angela Williams, who won an unprecedented fourth NCAA 100m title and later was awarded the Honda/Broderick Cup given to the nation's top female collegiate athlete. In 2001, the Women of Troy put on a near-perfect meet to win their first NCAA team title. In 2000, USC took second--at the time, their best-ever showing at the NCAAs. In 1999, USC was the only program that finished in the top five in both men's and women's track and field, as the women were third and the men fifth. In 1998, the women's team finished in fifth place. In 1997 they placed 14th, but that came on the heels of their first-ever Pac-10 title and a seventh-place NCAA finish in 1996. Allice's women's teams feature powerhouse athletes who go on to shine on the national and world stages, including such stars as Williams, Natasha Danvers, Brigita Langerholc and Torri Edwards.

USC's past successes in track and field are well known: 29 NCAA championships (including two indoor titles), 61 world records, 87 Olympic team members, 40 Olympic gold medals and 16 inductees in the U.S. National Track and Field Hall of Fame - all encapsuled in 104 years of a rich and storied tradition.

And now, with the second century of Trojan track and field already well underway, Ron Allice and his staff continue to work hard to maintain the luster of USC's most successful athletic program.

Allice, a prep standout at Long Beach (Calif.) Poly High, is well known for his ability to win. His overall dual meet coaching mark is 211-43-1 in 35 years at five schools, including 11 state championships in 16 years at Long Beach City College, his previous stop before landing at Troy. Allice's programs have produced more than 256 All-Americans, plus 16 Olympians, four world record holders and seven American record holders. He has coached at his high school, junior college and college alma maters on the way to compiling his outstanding coaching statistics.

Allice has certainly reached the top echelon of his career, although he has not forgotten the beginnings of his coaching days. In his first coaching job, he guided the Long Beach Comets, a girls' and women's AAU program, for four years (1964-68), expanding the squad from just five girls to more than 150 competitors. During that time, he was also a graduate assistant at Long Beach State in 1964, an assistant at Compton (Calif.) High in 1966 (the team was second at the CIF championships) and the head coach for track and cross country for two years (1967-68) at Wilson High in Long Beach.

The next three seasons (1969-71), he was the track and cross country coach at Poly High in Long Beach. His track teams went 23-4 and captured the Moore League title each year. His 1971 squad was ranked as California's top dual meet team and was fifth at the state meet.

Allice was then Cal Poly Pomona's track and cross country head coach for two years (1972-73). Again, the success he had enjoyed at previous stops followed him -- the Broncos lost only one dual meet, won two CCAA titles (a first in school history) and finished fifth in 1972 and sixth in 1973 at the NCAA College Division championships.

He spent the next five seasons (1974-78) as the track and cross country head coach at Long Beach State. Despite being a new Division I program and having just three scholarships, four of his squads placed among the nation's Top 15 dual meet teams. He won one Pacific Coast Athletic Association title and his teams finished second twice. Two of his cross country teams won the PCAA crown (two others were runners-up).

In 1979, Allice went to Long Beach City College. During his tenure (1979-94), his men's teams won the conference championship all 16 years and lost only one dual meet (78-1) in that time. Besides the 11 state crowns (including five in a row), his Vikings had five state runner-up finishes and won 14 Southern California championships (with two second-place finishes). In 1980, his team was selected by Track & Field News as the best junior college team in history. He was named the 1992 Coach of the Year by both the California Community College Coaches Association and the California Coaches Association (CCA). He also coached LBCC's cross country teams, including the 1990 state titlist and the 1991 state runner-up. He was the 1992 CCA Cross Country Coach of the Year.

Allice's achievements have not only been limited to the coaching ranks. He prepped at Long Beach Poly High (where he was a CIF finalist in the 440-yard dash), then went to Long Beach City College before attending Long Beach State, where he set the school record in the 440-yard dash. He was inducted into Long Beach State's Athletic Hall of Fame in 1993.

Allice received his bachelor's degree in physical education in 1962 and his master's in physical education in 1970, both from Long Beach State.

He and his wife, Sharlene, have three children: Lance (38, who is a lawyer), Melinda (36, a USC graduate in the field of geriatric and special patient care who made Coach Allice a grandfather with the birth of her son, Jay Ron) and Sean (30, a USC graduate of the school of Cinema who is teaching English at Cabrillo High in Long Beach).

NCAA Championships Won By USC Coaches: Dean Cromwell (12) Jess Mortensen (7) Vern Wolfe (7) Jess Hill (2) Ron Allice (1)

Conferences Championships Won: Jess Mortensen (10) Dean Cromwell (8) Vern Wolfe (8) Ron Allice (5) Jess Hill (3) Fred LaPlante (1)