PVAMU, Swac & USA Track Coach Legend Barbara Jacket passed away


Fiyah

Fiyah

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Staff member
RIP Coach as you taught plenty of us Panthers and raised plenty of young ladies in your track program.

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Legendary Prairie View A&M women’s track coach and Olympic track coach Barbara Jean Jacket ranks as one of the greatest women’s track & field coaches in United States Track & Field history.

Born in Port Arthur, Texas, she and her two siblings were raised by her mother, who died when Barbara was just out of college. Jacket was a 1954 graduate of Lincoln High School, where she starred in basketball and track. After graduating from Tuskegee Institute in 1958, Jacket's achievements were almost too numerous to mention. Her 1965 to 1991 teams claimed eight National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) outdoor titles and two indoor titles; won national titles in the Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW) and the U.S. Track and Field Federation; won eight Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC) cross country titles, nine indoor titles and five outdoor SWAC titles in track and field. Jacket was named SWAC Coach of the Year on 23 occasions and NAIA Coach of the Year five times. Her teams won 23 SWAC championships, and Jacket tutored 57 All-Americans. In 1990, she became the only women athletic director in the SWAC when she was named to the position at Prairie View.

Jacket has received recognition on the state, nationals, and international level. A few of her honors: named to the NAIA Hall of Fame; honored as a "Distinguished Citizen" by the Port Arthur Chamber of Commerce; inducted into Tuskegee Institute's Athletic Hall of Fame (1987); selected NAIA "Outdoor Track Coach" four times; named "Coach of the Year" by SWAC in cross country seven times, indoor track nine times, outdoor track six times; voted a proclamation for meritorious service by Texas A&M Board of Regents in Fall of 1992; received the Joe Robercher Award; received the President's TAC Award; twice received the Yellow Rose of Texas Award; was inducted into the Texas Women's Hall of Fame (1993).
Jacket retired as head coach of women's track and field at Prairie View A&M in 1991 to devote more time to the Olympics. As coach of the 1992 U.S. Women's Olympic Track Team during the Olympics which ran from July 25 to August 9 in Barcelona, Spain, Ms. Jacket had the enviable task of coaching such greats as long jumper Jackie Joyner-Kersee and sprinters Gwen Torrance, Gail Devers, and Evelyn Ashford. The women's team won four gold medals, three silver medals and three bronze medals which was more than any team since 1956 at th time. She was the second African-American female to coach an Olympic team; the first was her track coach at Tuskegee, Dr. Nell Jackson, who coached in 1956. They also set a record in the 400-meter relay.

Barbara Jacket (1992) - Prairie View A&M University Sports Hall Of Fame - Prairie View A&M University Athletics

Barbara Jacket, Class: Induction: 1992 Sport(s): Women's Track, Head Coach, 1974 AIAW National Championship Women's Track Team, 1974 SWAC Championship Women's Outdoor
pvpanthers.com pvpanthers.com

View: https://vimeo.com/118306980?ref=fb-share&fbclid=IwAR22SDMpToFAH5AipBGCEFkwSegflU7vsaFFI9GsECUlM4dbAoYBzR9lohU
 

RIP to an Icon!

My first time meeting Coach Jacket was my sophomore year in high school when my aunt took me and my cousin to the PV homecoming parade. She was out on University Drive directing traffic (lol) but she stopped and came and talked with us. Definitely a jack of all trades.

She was tough though. They don't make professors like that anymore
 
Storm96 said:
RIP to an Icon!

My first time meeting Coach Jacket was my sophomore year in high school when my aunt took me and my cousin to the PV homecoming parade. She was out on University Drive directing traffic (lol) but she stopped and came and talked with us. Definitely a jack of all trades.

She was tough though. They don't make professors like that anymore
Click to expand...

That's what I have heard. I talked to a lady that ran track for PV when Jacket was the coach and she said that that lady did not play. And you could see the results on the track. Prairie View was no slouch.
 
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RIP to an original, she was really doing her thing when I was on the yard. I could hear her whistle a mile away.

RIPCoach
 
Storm96 said:
RIP to an Icon!

My first time meeting Coach Jacket was my sophomore year in high school when my aunt took me and my cousin to the PV homecoming parade. She was out on University Drive directing traffic (lol) but she stopped and came and talked with us. Definitely a jack of all trades.

She was tough though. They don't make professors like that anymore
Click to expand...
She was like a bicycle with no seat...."She would get in that Azz"....... but sweet as she could be as long as you were doing what you were suppose to be doing....

Oh yeah....and you better not have been walking on the track with your football cleats on......lol
 

PVAMU remembers legendary Track and Field Coach Barbara Jean Jacket​


“We mourn the loss of our beloved Coach Jacket. She was an icon in the Track and Field community with a legacy of producing student-athletes who performed at the top of their game. Her groundbreaking achievements and stellar record as a coach will continue to serve as an inspiration to all. The Prairie View A&M University family offers our deepest sympathy to coach Jacket’s family and friends.”

-Donald R. Reed, Ph.D., director of PVAMU Athletics.



One of the greatest women’s track and field coaches in not only U.S. track and field history but also Prairie View A&M University history has passed away. Barbara Jean Jacket was 87 years old.

“Nobody remembers second place,” Jacket often told her Lady Panthers during her 25 years of coaching the women’s track and field team from 1966 to 1991.

With that admonition and hours of hard two-a-day workouts, her teams brought home 18 national championships and 23 Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC) championships. The SWAC championships included nine for indoor, six for outdoor and eight for cross country. Jacket was named SWAC Coach of the Year on 23 occasions and National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics Coach of the Year five times.

“Barbara Jacket has been a consistent staple in the track and field community,” said PVAMU Head Women’s Track and Field Coach Angela Williams. “She helped promote the sport for women at a time when women were considered second class. Given the opportunity to help continue the legacy she has built has been an honor. She will be missed.”

Barbara Jacket During her years of coaching the Lady Panthers, Jacket turned out 57 All-American athletes and five Olympic contenders. Her success with her PVAMU teams brought Coach Jacket national attention, and she was recruited to coach USA teams at international meets beginning in 1975. From 1975 until 1991, her international coaching took her to Russia, Europe, Japan, South America and New Zealand.

Jacket retired from coaching the Lady Panthers at age 56 to concentrate on her job as head coach of the 1992 U.S. Olympic Women’s Track and Field Team. She was the second African American to hold the job, the first having been Dr. Nell Jackson 36 years earlier, in 1956. Dr. Jackson had been one of Jacket’s most important mentors. At the same time Nell Jackson served as Olympic coach, she was Jacket’s track coach at Tuskegee University, her alma mater.

With a three-billion television viewers worldwide watching the 1992 Olympics and 250 million Americans expecting their countrywomen to bring home gold from Barcelona that year, Jacket felt the pressure to make sure that the athletes in her charge put in their top performances. When it was over, the U.S. women track stars took home four gold, three silver and three bronze medals, more than any U.S. Women’s Olympic Track and Field team had won since 1956. Her gold medalists in Barcelona included legendary sprinters Gwen Torrence, Evelyn Ashford and Gail Devers, and heptathlete Jackie Joyner-Kersee.

Jacket grew up on the West Side of Port Arthur, Texas, with a single mother and two siblings. “When I was a kid, I didn’t know we were poor because we always had something to eat,” she said. “It was in Port Arthur that I received my most important mentoring and where I began setting the stage for my career.”

Jacket attributes much of her success to her Lincoln High School basketball and track coach, Miss AP Guidry, her first and most important mentor. With Miss Guidry’s help, Jacket attended Tuskegee University after graduating from Lincoln in 1954. At Tuskegee, Jacket earned the nickname “Miss Basketball” for her prowess on the court.

Barbara Jacket After graduating from Tuskegee in 1958, Jacket taught one year in Eufala, Alabama, and then moved back home to Port Arthur to teach at her alma mater, Lincoln High School, and to take care of her ailing mother, who would die shortly thereafter. In 1964, she took the job of swimming instructor at PVAMU. Because competition was in her blood, in 1966, Jacket decided to start a women’s track team at Prairie View A&M by recruiting female students from her physical education classes and girls she saw running across campus who were trying not to be late for class.

“As a student-athlete, I was lucky to have known Coach Jacket; although I was not a member of the Prairie View A&M track team, as an athlete, she still played an intricate role in my life,” said Alicia Pete, associate athletic director at PVAMU. “She always readied with a kind, encouraging or motivating word. Coach Jacket had high expectations for each student-athlete that she encountered. She inspired me to preserver during difficult times and showed me by example how to live life as a productive, responsible and caring adult. I have so much admiration and respect for her.”

The most gratifying event of Jacket’s career—her greatest accomplishment—came in 1974, she said, when her team won its first national championship at the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women meet, with only five athletes on the team. “That win was a stepping stone to the rest of my career,” Jacket said.

A few of Jacket’s other honors include: being named to the SWAC Hall of Fame and NAIA Hall of Fame; being named “Distinguished Citizen” by the Port Arthur Chamber of Commerce; being named to Tuskegee Institute’s Athletic Hall of Fame; receiving the award for NAIA “Outdoor Track Coach” four times; “Coach of the Year” by SWAC in cross country seven times, indoor track nine times and outdoor track six times; being voted a proclamation for meritorious service by the Texas A&M University System Board of Regents; receiving the Joe Robercher Award, President’s TAC Award and twice receiving the Yellow Rose of Texas Award; and she was inducted into the Texas Women’s Hall of Fame.
 
PV Legends from the golden era... Jacket, Nicks, Tempton, Stewart, Hawkins, Frazier, Edwards, and too many orhers all of us were blessed to spend a portion of our life near.

Coach Jacket is a product of that golden PVIL era. Hence why we need to ensure the PVIL remains undefiled and its stories continue to be told.

We bleed purple and gold. Rest, coach. 🙁
 

Texas Sports Hall of Fame: Knowing a coach's value, Prairie View's Jacket made lasting impact​


Sit in the gymnasium at Prairie View A&M and look up, and you'll find two decades' worth of women's track and field championship banners hanging from the rafters — 18 national championships, 23 Southwestern Athletic Conference championships, 57 All-Americans and five Olympic contenders.
Prairie View A&M women's track & field was the house that Barbara Jacket built. Jacket started the program from the ground up in 1966 and coached the Lady Panthers for 25 years. She served as an assistant coach for the U.S. women’s national track team at the 1979 Pan American games, was named Prairie View’s athletic director in 1990, and led the U.S. Olympic team in the 1992 Barcelona Olympics.

Jacket died in 2022, but her championship legacy has landed her a spot in the Texas Sports Hall of Fame's 2024 induction class.

wacotrib.com

Texas Sports Hall of Fame: Knowing a coach's value, Prairie View's Jacket made lasting impact

Sit in the gymnasium at Prairie View A&M and look up, and you'll find two decades' worth of women's track and field championship banners hanging from the rafters — 18
wacotrib.com wacotrib.com
 
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