Hair Announces Retirement from Southeastern

DURANT, Okla. – Southeastern head cross country and track and field coach Ron Hair has announced his retirement from the position effective immediately.
 
Assistant coach Dr. Stephanie Heald has been appointed the Interim Head Coach for the upcoming track and field season.
 
"Coming back to Southeastern to finish out my 47-year career has been the highlight of many athletic moments I have experienced during that span," said Hair. "In the last 10 years Marty and have witnessed the growth of so many student athletes providing us with numerous memories we'll cherish always. I will miss them as well as my fellow coworkers, staff and administration and being a daily member of the Southeastern family."
 
"Coach Hair has done a great job during his time at SE," said Director of Athletics Keith baxter. "He has guided the program through many changes and much growth.  Coach Hair spearheaded bringing women's track and field back to the SE campus.  We appreciate all he has done for the program, the department and countless student-athletes.   wish him the best in his retirement."
 
Hair took over the Savage Storm cross country program in the spring of 2013, helping propel the team to a pair of first-place event finishing in his first season and eventually closing the year with a third-place finish at the Great American Conference Championship meet that season.
 
He would go on to have seven All-GAC honorees in cross country, led by Mikayla Coppedge posting a team-best sixth-place finish in the GAC Championship in 2016.
 
After revamping the cross country program, he would take on the challenge of relaunching the SE women's track and field program in 2018 with the team seeing its first action since the mid 1990's in 2019.
 
In 2021 the team would feature its first Great American Conference event champion as Jessie Sanchez swept the 200M and 400M runs in the team's third year of competition.
 
Over four seasons the women's track program would accumulate 14 All-GAC honors.
 
Hair is a 1975 graduate of Southeastern Oklahoma State with a Bachelor of Science before spending more than 35 years coaching at the high school level with track and cross country.
 
Over that span he coached 11 state qualifiers at the high school level, as well as four regional championships at the individual level.
 
He also had one regional championship team finish, while adding five team district championships and guiding his squads to five-straight high school division wins at the Cowtown Marathon.
 
Hair began his career at Dickson ISD in 1975 and made eight stops since then before landing at Slidell.
 
Prior to Slidell he spent five seasons at Bowie HS in Bowie, Texas, which followed an 11-year stint at Springtown HS in Springtown, Texas.
 
He has been recognized throughout his career as a teacher, earning Bowie's Teacher of the Year honor in 2006, and he was named the State of Texas Teacher of the Year by the Council of Humanities in 1999.