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Ronald Boyce enters his 12th year heading
the Missouri State women’s track program in
2007-08. Boyce was named the fifth head
coach in the program’s history in 1997 after
spending one year as an assistant.
Since joining the Missouri State staff in
1996, Boyce has built the women’s team into
one of the most respected programs in the
Midwest and the premier program in the
Missouri Valley Conference. Over the past
decade, Boyce’s indoor and outdoor track and
field teams have claimed eight Missouri
Valley Conference Championships, been Valley
runners-up six times and have finished
outside of the top three times only twice.
Directing a balanced program has long been a
goal of Boyce’s. That goal was realized
during the 2002-03 seasons, as Missouri
State claimed its first MVC running Triple
Crown. On top of Boyce’s eight league track
and field titles the cross country program
has added five of their own. Since the
1996-97 seasons the Bears the track and
field and cross country program has won at
least one league title during eight of those
11 years.
Boyce has been the mastermind behind a
Missouri State program that has seen its
fair share of individual success as well.
MSU women’s track and field athletes have
accumulated 125 individual and relay event
championships and have brought home 389
all-Conference medals since 1996.
A nine-time MVC Coach of the Year (five
indoors, three outdoors, one cross country)
Boyce is regarded as one of the top
developers of sprint and hurdle athletes in
the country. Under his direction the
Missouri State women have dominated the
Missouri Valley Conference. While setting
every MSU women’s sprint and hurdles record
during his tenure, Boyce’s athletes own
seven MVC all-time records and 10 MVC
championship records. His sprint and hurdle
athletes have also racked up numerous
honors, compiling 267 All-Missouri Valley
Conference medals, 90 MVC individual titles,
44 MVC runner-up finishes times and 31
third-place finishes.
Boyce earned MVC Women’s Cross Country Coach
of the Year honors in 1996 by leading the
squad to the conference title. In his only
season as coach of the women’s cross country
program, Boyce guided Missouri State to
three meet titles and its first MVC cross
country championship. Five Bears recorded
career-best times and finished among the top
15 in the conference race. Camille Wise
earned All-MVC honors with a sixth-place
showing.
Boyce has also helped the Missouri State
program gain national recognition as the
Bears routinely send athletes to the NCAA
championships. Prior to Boyce’s arrival only
three MSU track and field athletes had ever
qualified for the NCAA Division-I meet.
Under Boyce’s direction Missouri State
women’s track and field has compiled 36 NCAA
regional qualifying performances on the
track while MSU athletes have qualified for
the NCAA national championships 35 times.
Missouri State
women’s track and field athletes have also
earned NCAA All-America status 16 times with
14 of those honors coming during Boyce’s
tenure. In 1996 Melinda Sallins took fifth
at the NCAA meet in the 400m hurdles to earn
the first All-America honor during the Boyce
era. Michelle Baptiste earned a spot on the
All-America team in 1997 by taking seventh
in the long jump. Boyce’s 4x400m relay squad
of Juliet Pommells, Verneta Lesforis,
Mashere Harrison and
Augustina Charles ran 3:36.18 to earn
All-America honors during the 1999 indoor
season. During the 1999 outdoor season
Pommells, Lesforis, Charles along with Trudi
Garrett, bettered their mark to 3:33.09 to
add four more All-America awards to Boyce’s
list. The 2004 outdoor season saw the Bears
first All-American come from the distance
side of the team. Casey Owens ran 34:53 that
season to become an All-American in the
10,000m, an honor she earned again in 2005.
The 2005 season also saw the emergence of
one of the greatest track and field athletes
in school history, Tracy Partain. Partain
earned All-America honors in the indoor
pentathlon that season with a ninth place
finish at the national meet. Partain left
her mark on the MSU record book in 2006, as
she challenged for the NCAA title before
finishing as the national runner-up in the
outdoor heptathlon.
Boyce has also coached five athletes to the
Olympic Games including a pair of Missouri
State athletes. Baptiste competed at the
Olympics in 1996 and Lesforis in 2000.
Numerous other MSU athletes have competed
for their respective countries
internationally through the years, including
Owens (2005, 2007) and Partain, who competed
for Team USA (2006).
A native of Barbados, Boyce graduated from
Murray State University in 1989 with a
bachelor’s degree in business
administration. Before joining the Missouri
State staff, Boyce held assistant coaching
positions at both Murray State and Tennessee
State. While a men’s track volunteer
assistant at Tennessee State in 1993-94,
Boyce coached one NCAA Division I national
qualifier. He coached four NCAA
All-Americans and two 1992 Olympians as a
men’s track assistant at Murray State from
1989 to 1991. Boyce helped the Racers to
indoor and outdoor Ohio Valley Conference
titles in 1990 and 1991.
Boyce and his wife, Edith, have one
daughter, Nakita, who is a softball player
at Mississippi State University. |
