Editor’s Note: This is the first in a five-part series on the UL Athletic Hall of Fame Class of 2026, which will be honored Friday. Tickets for the induction to be held at the McElligott Club at Our Lady of Lourdes Stadium are available from the Ragin’ Cajun Athletic Foundation at RCAF@louisiana.edu or by calling (337) 851-7223.
Lawrence Willis just had to find his niche.
Most high school track and field athletes take part in multiple disciplines and events by necessity.
Weight throwers compete with every implement; jumpers run in the hurdles; and flat jumpers run in the sprints and relays. That’s exactly what Willis did when he was a prep track standout at tiny Iota High School.
“When coach (Charles) Lancon recruited him, he was a multi-event person because he did all of them pretty well for that time,” UL track and field coach Tommy Badon said. “He ran the 400 in 48, 49, which back then was very good. He triple-jumped 47, long-jumped 22, high-jumped, ran some relays.
“The biggest thing for him was his upside, and you could see that. He was a hugely talented athlete, just at a small school. Back then a lot of kids around here came out of the small country schools and did really well. We had a lot like that, guys that had a lot of upside, and Lawrence fit that perfectly.”
Willis started concentrating on the flat jumps when he joined the Ragin’ Cajuns. By the time he finished his UL career, he had three All-America and nine All-Sun Belt Conference honors.
In his senior year, he won the Sun Belt long jump and triple jump titles in both indoors and outdoors, — the only UL athlete ever to win two different events in both indoors and outdoors in the same year.
But he wasn’t through specializing. Willis turned his collegiate flat-jumping success into an international career once he concentrated on the triple jump. He finished fifth in the 2007 World Championships in the triple jump in Rio de Janeiro, becoming one of only three UL track athletes ever to finish in the world top five. He also took part in the Pan American Games as part of Team USA in 2007.
Because of those accomplishments, Willis will be inducted into the UL Athletic Hall of Fame on Friday as part of a weekend of activities that includes the Cajuns’ fourth home football game of the season against Troy on Saturday.
He will be inducted along with baseball standout Dylan Moore, women’s basketball standard-setter Tenna Cooper, record-setting football standout Fred Stamps and former football coach Nelson Stokley.
Willis was named to the all-time Sun Belt team, selected after the league’s first 30 years, and went on to win a total of eight Sun Belt titles along with being named the Outstanding Performer at the 2002 indoor championships in his first collegiate season when he was scoring points in multiple events. That was before his triple-jump marks started jumping off the page.
“Some people have a lot of elastic strength, is what we call it,” Badon said. “The triple and the high jump and the hurdles are probably the hardest on the body because you have to have rebound, you have to be able to hit the ground and rebound up. Not everybody can do that, and it’s not until you work at it before that ability comes out.
“Lawrence was a strong guy and you saw that when he jumped. He wasn’t the fastest guy — that’s probably why his triple marks were better than his long jump marks — but he was fast enough, and all the stars aligned when he found an event that met his talent. He found an event that worked best for him.”
More than two decades after his collegiate career, Willis still ranks second in school history in the triple jump outdoors with a 53-11¼ mark, behind only previous Hall of Fame inductee Ndaba Mdhlongwa. He’s third at UL for indoors in the same event at 54-4. He also ranks fifth in the long jump indoors (24-7¾).
He set those marks while earning All-America honors in the triple jump in 2003, and earning both indoors and outdoors All-America awards in 2004. That year, he finished third in the NCAA outdoors championships, and later that year he began his post-collegiate career with a sixth-place finish at the U.S. Olympic Trials.
“Track’s a sport that if you have the talent and you understand the work ethic that’s required to be elite, you can have success,” Badon said. “Lawrence had that. The best jumpers understand when the talent matches the work ethic, you can have great results, and he was an extremely hard worker along with having extremely high goals. We didn’t have that many great things happening for us as a team at that time, but he just stood out.”
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