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Kandice Erwin was named the University of Dayton's new women's track and field coach in January of 2005. Prior to UD, Erwin led the track and field and cross country teams at Texas Lutheran University to unprecedented success since her arrival in 2001. In her first year at TLU, Erwin guided the D-III school's cross country team to a third-place finish in the 2001 American Southwest Conference Championships and the track team to second-place in the 2002 ASC Championships. The following year, her cross country team won the ASC title. The 2002 ASC title was the first for the TLU athletics program, which joined the conference in 1999. Erwin was the ASC women's cross country Coach of the Year and received an honorable mention as South Region Coach of the Year from southregionrunning.com. Erwin had two freshmen take the top two places in 2003 at the conference cross country championship, as the team repeated as ASC champs and she repeated as Coach of the Year. In 2003, five of Erwin's cross country runners were named to the All-ASC and TLU also had its first-ever individual champion and freshman of the year. She also received recognition from south regionrunning.com once again. In 2004, she led the cross country team to a three-peat, winning the ASC crown. The back-to-back-to-back conference titles for the women's cross country team were the first three consecutive ASC titles for a sport at TLU. Erwin was named the ASC's Coach of the Year for the third-straight year and coached the individual champion, freshman of the year, and five All-Conference athletes. In the spring of 2004, Erwin guided her women's track and field team to 22 new school records. The team finished second at the conference meet for the third consecutive year, but the team finished the ASC meet with a school-record number of points. During the 2004 season, TLU had seven conference champions, seven conference runners-up, five ASC All-Conference honorees and one national qualifier. In 2005, Erwin was named ASC Coach of the Year for the first time in track and field, after guiding TLU to its first-ever conference track and field championship. In her final full meet for Texas Lutheran, Erwin's team edged six-time defending conference champion McMurry by six points, 264.50 to 258.50. It was a TLU's first track championship after three straight second-place conference finishes in her first three seasons. Erwin came to TLU from Jarrell, Texas, where she served Jarrell High School as the head cross country and track and field coach for 2000-01. While a coach at Jarrell, Erwin coached the boy's cross country team to a district title and led the boy's and girl's cross country teams to the regional meet. She also guided girl's track athletes to the regional meet in four events. At Angelo State, Erwin was an athletic and academic scholarship recipient. She lettered four years and was a four-time qualifier to the NCAA D- II Track and Field National Championships. She earned All-American honors in all four years as a member of ASU's 400 and 1600 relays. She was named to the 1999 Lone Star Conference Commissioner's Honor Roll and was selected to the 1998 Academic All-Conference team. She was an Honorable Mention Academic All-Conference selection in 1997. Erwin earned a Bachelor of Science in kinesiology from ASU in 1999. She completed her Master of Science in kinesiology (also at Angelo State) with a perfect 4.0 GPA and finished her master's degree in just one year. Erwin is a native of Zephyr, Texas, where she graduated from Zephyr High School as class valedictorian. She won three Texas High School Track and Field championships for Zephyr in 199 -- winning gold medals in the 400, the 200 and the high jump. She was also a four-time state qualifier in cross country, a four-year letterwinner in basketball and a three-year varsity tennis player. Erwin and her husband Christopher met at Texas Lutheran, where he was an assistant baseball coach. |
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