Rock Light joined the East Texas A&M track and field staff in March 2019.
"We're extremely blessed to have coach Light on staff with us. He brings a tremendous background in all event areas. He's worked with some of the best athletes in the world, and I know our student-athletes will improve under his guidance and his tutelage," head coach George Pincock said.
"It was an honor to receive the phone call from coach Pincock to ask of my interest to return to coaching after a year and a half of retirement. I realized how much I missed coaching, and once I met with (director of athletics) Tim McMurray, the student-athletes, and the staff, I knew this was going to be my next stop in my coaching career. It's great to be back in the Lone Star Conference, working with a program that has had a great history," Light noted.
A highly-regarded coach at the collegiate, U.S. and international levels for more than three decades, Light has coached four Olympic Qualifiers, including Charles Austin, who set the world record and won Olympic gold in the high jump in 1996. He has coached a national champion in each event he is responsible for coaching at East Texas A&M, and school records still stand at each of his coaching stops.
Light was most recently the head track & field coach at his alma mater – Adams State – for four years, earning five Division II Program of the Year honors from the USTFCCCA (four men, one women), 10 top 10 team finishes, 11 RMAC team championships, 192 Division II All-Americans, and seven RMAC Coach of the Year honors.
The Grizzlies won three NCAA Division II National Championships in Light's second tenure at ASU – 2014 women's indoor, 2015 men's indoor, and 2016 women's indoor. He was inducted to the Adams State Hall of Fame in 2017 and the RMAC Hall of Fame in 2008.
Light has served as a consultant for the US Olympic Training Center and was the associate head coach at Texas Tech from 2005-12. At Tech, he coached First Team All-Americans in seven events and Big 12 champions in four events. He coached a Big 12 MVP, a Big 12 High Point Award winner, two Big 12 Athletes of the Year, and three Big 12 Freshmen of the Year. He also recruited two classes which were ranked in the top five in the nation by Track & Field News.
Prior to his time in Lubbock, Light was an assistant coach at Oregon, where he was named the 2005 PAC 10 Men's Co-Coach of the Year as he coached student-athletes to seven new school records. He coached two NCAA All-Americans, co-coached one NCAA National Champion, instructed 13 top five all-time indoor performances and 17 top 10 all-time outdoor performances.
Before his time in Eugene, Light had great success at LSU as the team's recruiting coordinator and mentor for their heralded men's and women's multi-event, high jump, and men's hurdle student-athletes. As an assistant coach for six seasons from 1989-95, his athletes claimed four NCAA titles (men's and women's high jump, heptathlon and decathlon), 15 All-America performances, 13 SEC titles, and 12 school records.
Indoors and outdoors during that run, the LSU men and women combined for 11 NCAA team titles, eight SEC titles and 19 top-10 NCAA team finishes. In that stretch, he also coached post-collegian Charles Austin, 1996 Olympic gold medalist, 1991 World Championships gold medalist and Olympic record holder.
In his previous coaching position, he served as men's and women's head track and field and cross country coach at Southwest Texas State in San Marcos from 1983-89. He guided SWT to a pair of Southland Conference titles (and six runner-up finishes) to go along with five Gulf Star Conference crowns. Individually, his athletes won seven combined league titles and 21 All-America honors. In return, he was named 1989 NCAA District VI Coach of the Year, and overall was a seven-time Southland and Gulf Star Conference Coach of the Year honoree.
Light began his coaching career as the women's track and field and cross country head coach at Adams State College for two seasons from 1980-82. He was honored as NAIA National Coach of the Year following his team's NAIA cross country win in 1981 (and then-meet record low 25 points), and outdoor national runner-up finish in 1982. Individually, his athletes claimed four individual track and field and cross country crowns, two NAIA national records, and 15 All-America plaques.
As a student-athlete, he was a two-time All-America sprinter at Adams State, and graduated with a bachelor's degree in health, physical education and recreation in 1979, and added a master's degree in exercise physiology in 1980.
A native of Lamar, Colo., Light and his wife Shanny have two sons, Tyler and Brett.
