Jan. 7, 2002

Meet Schedule

Houston, Texas - The University of Houston men's and women's track and field teams will open their 2002 indoor season when they host the Leonard Hilton Memorial Indoor Meet on Friday, January 11 at the Bill Yeoman Field House inside the UH Athletics/Alumni Center.

The meet will begin Friday at 2:00 p.m. with the women's 20-pound weight throw and women's long jump. The first running events, the men's and women's distance medley relays will start at 5:00 p.m.

Houston will compete against teams from seven other schools at the meet. They include: Hampton, Sam Houston State, Southwest Texas State, Texas (women's team only), Texas A&M, Texas-Arlington and Texas-San Antonio.

The meet was named in honor of former UH All-American distance runner Leonard Hilton, who passed away on July 4, 2000, after a year-long battle with pancreatic cancer.

Hilton earned All-American honors in the three-mile run in 1971 with a third-place finish at the NCAA Championships with a time of 13:31.6 and ran the anchor leg on Houston's distance medley relay team that set a world record in 1970. During his UH career, Hilton set school records in five different events.

A graduate of Austin High School in Houston, Hilton became the first Cougar miler to break the four-minute barrier. He accomplished that feat a stunning 32 times.

After completing his running career at Houston, Hilton ran for the 1972 United States Olympic Team at Munich, Germany. He qualified for the team with a third-place finish in the 5,000 meters at the U.S. Olympic Trials.

Following his death, Hilton's wife, Christie, and their foster children Elsa and Gabriella Castellon Quisbert, established the Leonard Hilton Scholarship Endowment for Houston's track and field teams.