Former South Dakota track and field coach and Coyote Sports Hall of Fame member Dan Lennon, 95, died today in Mesa, AZ. The funeral will be held at 11 a.m. on Monday, Oct. 14 at St. Agnes Catholic Church in Vermillion. In lieu of flowers, the family has requested that memorials be sent to the USD Track and Field Endowment at the USD Foundation.

A native of Vermillion, S.D., Lennon was an all-North Central Conference guard for the Coyote football team in the 1930s, earning the league's Most Valuable Lineman award as a senior in 1933. He earned an undergraduate degree from USD in 1935 and obtained his master's degree in 1956.

A veteran of the U.S. Navy, he rose to the rank of lieutenant. After coaching stops at Hot Springs High School and the South Dakota School of Mines, Lennon returned to USD as a football assistant under Harry Gamage in 1947. He assumed the track and field duties at USD two years later. It was during this first spring as head track coach, in 1949, that Lennon initiated the USD Invitational track meet, now called the Dan Lennon Relays. It remains one of the premier track and field events in South Dakota.

Under his tutelage, USD was either first or second in the NCC championship, winning four crowns in six years from 1957-67. Lennon's first title was in 1961 followed by championships in 1963, 1965, and 1966. He coached at USD from 1949-75.

Lennon was honored innumerable times during his career, including 1973, when he was one of the three to receive the NCC Honor Award at the North Central Conference fall banquet.

He served as honorary College Division referee at the prestigious Drake Relays in 1968 and was the honorary referee at many top area meets, including the Howard Wood-Dakota Relays in Sioux Falls, the Art Dickinson Relays in Cedar Falls, and the Sioux City Relays.

The South Dakota Sportswriters Association named him College Coach of the Year in 1963, and his 1966 squad was voted College Team of the Year in South Dakota by the same group. He was inducted into the Coyote Sports Hall of Fame in 1974 and later named to the South Dakota Sports Hall of Fame.