One of the most versatile runners in US Track and Field history, Francie Larrieu Smith made a name for herself as a runner and a coach. Born on the west coast in Palo Alto, CA, high schools in the ’60s did not offer track and field to women, only basketball, swimming, and field hockey. As a result, she trained and worked out with the boy’s track and field team and focused on competing at the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) meets. She joined a girls AAU team, the San Jose Cindergals, then attended college at Cal State University, Long Beach, and UCLA.
In 1970, at the age of 17, Larrieu won the AAU national title in the 1,500 meters in and went on to win 22 national titles over her career. Her success only continued after becoming the AAU 1500m – 1-mile national champion in 1972, ‘73, ‘76, ‘77, ‘79, and ‘80, as well as the AAU indoor mile champion in ‘75, ‘77, ‘78, and ‘79. In February 1975, she became the first U.S. woman to run a sub-4:30 mile indoor with a time of 4:29:0 and just a month later set a new world record of 4:28:5. Larrieu Smith is also the first woman to run the outdoor sub-4:30 mile with a time of 4:28:2. Over the course of her 30-year professional career she set the U.S. Mile outdoor record six times, the U.S. indoor record four times, established a total of 36 U.S. records, and set12 world bests in distances ranging from 1,000 to 10,000 meters. Larrieu Smith made five U.S. Olympic teams (1972, ‘76, ‘80, ‘88, and ‘92) and had the honor of being the flag bearer for Team USA in the opening ceremony at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona.
In 1999, she began her coaching career at Southwestern University in Georgetown, TX as the Head Men’s and Women’s Cross Country and Track and Field Coach. In May of 2018, after almost two decades, she retired from coaching. During her coaching career she led three athletes to the NCAA Cross Country Championships, 29 athletes to Individual conference championship titles, coached 21 athletes with Regional honors, and 24 athletes with All-Conference honors. In 2009, she served as the USA Track and Field Junior Women’s Team Leader at the IAAF World Cross Country Championships and in 2011 she was selected as an assistant coach for the Pan American Games. As a volunteer and top spokesperson for the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, she has saved lives by educating women on the early detection of breast cancer. In 1992, she served as the National Honorary Chair of the Race for the Cure series, which includes 35 races.
Francie is a member of the RRCA Distance Running Hall of Fame (1987), Cal State Long Beach Hall of Fame (1992), Texas Women’s HOF (1994), National Track and Field HOF (1998), San Jose Sports HOF (2000), California Community College Athletic Association HOF (2003), Running Specialty HOF (2012), Texas Track and Field Coaches HOF (2017), and the National HS Track and Field Hall of Fame (2020). She was inducted into the Texas Sports Hall of Fame in 2020.
