Lisa Morgan gives tips to a camper at her track camp.
Lisa Morgan is a five-time National Coach for USA Track & Field. On Sunday, July 24, the final day of the IAAF World Under-20 Championships, a sweep of relay golds and a pair of individual bronze medals lifted Team USA, under Morgan’s guidance, to a tie for its highest-ever medal count at Zawisza Stadium in Poland.
Morgan was the former indoor and outdoor track and field head coach at Columbia High School. She led the Cougars to numerous individual and team championships on the conference, county, state and national levels for eight years. She stepped down at the end of the 2016 indoor season and became the Bloomfield College head coach this past spring.
With 21 total medals, including 11 golds, Team USA matched the 2002 and 2014 teams. Morgan’s women’s team won five of those gold medals with athletes Taylor McLaughlin and Alyssa Wilson, both of New Jersey, earning individual medals as well.
McLaughlin, of Scotch Plains, surged back after struggling through the final bend in the men’s 400-meter hurdles to take silver. Wilson, of Toms River, claimed bronze in the women’s shot put on her only legal throw of the competition in round two.
Morgan, a 1985 CHS graduate and University of Kentucky graduate, turned in another successful stint on the Team USA staff. In 2010-2011, she served as the distance coach at the IAAF World Youth Championships in France. Morgan served as head coach for Team USA in 2012-2013 when she led 43 athletes and 12 staff members on a three-week overseas trip to Ukraine for the World Youth Championships. In 2014, Morgan coached Team USA at the most recent staging of the World Junior Championships in Eugene, Ore. The IAAF World U-20 Championships were previously known as the IAAF World Junior Championships before undergoing a rebranding heading into 2016.
Bloomfield College welcomed the Newark Athletic Hall of Famer along with new track and field programs in 2015. The track and field teams joined the college’s 10 intercollegiate programs that compete in the Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference (CACC).
“I have the opportunity to leave a legacy here at Bloomfield College,” said Morgan. “That’s what I want to do. I want to make a contribution to this college.”
After returning from the IAAF World Under-20 Championships, Morgan held her annual Great American Track Camp at Underhill Field for youngsters last month.
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