Jeff Bennett, the greatest athlete in Oklahoma Christian’s history and a member of the 2017 induction class into the Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame, began his second stint as an OC assistant track and field coach in 2003, working primarily with OC’s field-event and multi-event competitors.
In 2014, one of his pupils, Austin Wallace, won the National Christian College Athletic Association decathlon title, while another, Roz Hamilton, was runner-up in the heptathlon. OC female field athletes won seven Great American Conference event titles from 2016 to 2019, when the Eagles competed in that NCAA Division II league.
Bennett, a native of Vinita, Okla., was a member of the 1972 U.S. Olympic team, placing fourth in the decathlon with 7,974 points (missing a medal by just 10 points) at the Olympic Games in Munich. He set a personal record of 8,121 points when he won the American Amateur Union's national decathlon championship in 1973.
Bennett, a 1970 OC graduate, won the NAIA championship in the decathlon in 1969 and 1970. In 1968, he was the NAIA champion in the 400-meter intermediate hurdles and was runner-up in the pole vault in 1970. The four-time NAIA All-American still holds OC records in the 400 hurdles (51.44 seconds) and the decathlon (8,071 points). He was inducted into the NAIA Hall of Fame in 1976 and was a charter honoree of the OC Athletic Hall of Fame in 1991.
In 2007, he was named as one of the top 100 Oklahoma athletes of the state’s first 100 years by The Oklahoman. On Aug. 14, 2017, Bennett formally will be inducted into the Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame, the state's highest honor for an athlete.
Bennett previously served as OC’s assistant track and field coach from 1974 to 1985. He spent 28 years in public education, working as a teacher, counselor and administrator for school districts in the Oklahoma City metropolitan area. In 2003, he retired as a lieutenant colonel after serving for 32 years in the U.S. Army National Guard.
In addition to his coaching duties, Bennett also served as OC’s associate dean of students from 2003 to 2016, when he retired from that position.
Bennett and his wife, Lisa, have two daughters, Lauren and Raley.
