Inductees

Sometimes, Rod Staggs looks back on his career as a track & field coach in high schools, colleges and for Team USA and just shakes his head in awe.

No, not about the incredible performances of his athletes. Instead, it’s far more important than that.

“In real time, I was amazed with their performances,” Staggs said. “Now I’m amazed with how they turned out as men and women.”

What a career it’s been, and his success – and the legacy he left behind – is why the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame proudly inducted Staggs as the 39^th Missouri Sports Legend.

That means that Staggs will have a bust – specially cast in bronze – featured on the Hall of Fame’s Legends Walkway.

A Kirksville native and 1966 Truman State University graduate, Staggs led track and field programs to 19 high school state championships, guided 58 state champion relay teams, 143 individual state champions and 28 All-Americans.

He was the head coach at St. Louis Berkeley High School for 32 seasons (1972-2003), with the program winning 16 state championships. He also was the head assistant coach on a pair of NAIA national track and field championship teams at Lindenwood University and in Loveland, Colo., winning two state championships at Loveland High School and one at Mountain View High School.

He also coached on eight USA national teams, which competed in the World and Pan-American championships in Australia, Argentina, Canada, Poland, the United Kingdom, Qatar and Mexico.

Staggs (MSHOF 2017) and his Berkeley-McCluer South Track & Field Programs (MSHOF 2019) have been inducted here.

He also is an inductee of the National High School Athletic Coaches Association, Missouri Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association, the St. Louis Sports, Lindenwood University Athletics and Truman State Athletics halls of fame.

There have been numerous successes – Erica Hart as a research scientist at Washington University, Bob Mason in leadership with Commerce Trust, Dwight Johnson with the FBI, Lavar Miller (MSHOF 2024) with GNC, Grammy winner Jon Webb and more.

Overall, he coached 1,558 athletes at Berkeley, with 101 earning college scholarships.

At Lindenwood, he coached two other national runner-up teams and guided 64 All-Americans, 25 national champions and record-setters in the men’s 4×100 relay and the women’s 100 meter high hurdles.

“Every one of them stuck to my motto – T.E.A.M., or Together, Everyone Achieves More and the Harder You Work, The Luckier You Get – from years ago,” Staggs said. “And every one of them applied to life and made them better people.”

At the 2012 London Olympics, 35 athletes had been coached by Staggs at some point.

And to think Staggs was green about coaching the sport when he got the Berkeley job in 1972. However, he leaned on then-Truman State coach Kenneth Gardner.

“I tried to do a lot of the things he did,” Staggs said. “He was fair, firm and consistent. The main thing is he treated his athletes as family. He treated them as people first.”

That’s why Staggs called his athletes men and women, raising expectations, given adulthood was just around the corner. If an athlete missed two practices, they were off the team.

His one regret?

“I over-trained athletes. We had a dirt track. It was hard to work on our blocks and hurdles,” said Staggs, who took his athletes to train at nearby high schools. “I finally realized that quality was more important than quantity.”

One time he required a runner to make up for missing a practice – the teen had a legitimate excuse – but the session had to be done on a moonlit evening. At one point, the runner had no choice but to hurdle a possum. Staggs still laughs about it.

Staggs stayed at Berkeley despite several job offers because he regularly helped athletes gain employment in the summer or after graduation.

Staggs was the National Coach of the Year by the National High School Athletic Coaches Association (1996), the National High School Federation (2003) and Missouri High School Track (19 times).

“I didn’t run a step, but they did,” Staggs said. “My athletes made me look good.”

Staggs coached the 2001 Pan-American Junior Championships, the 2001 UK Junior Tour, and was an assistant men’s coach in the 1996 and 2008 World Junior Championships, 2010 World Indoor Championships, plus the 2011 and 2015 Pan-American Game.

“I tried to teach life lessons, not just how to run fast,” said Staggs, father to Shayna and Shelby. “And I thank my wife, Rhonda, for raising our family while I was raising other men and women track athletes.”