Track coach at Abilene Christian

Oliver Jackson, 87, the former Abilene Christian College track and field coach whose athletes won four Olympic gold medals and set 15 world records, died of natural causes Wednesday at home in Abilene, Texas, the university announced.

Jackson, a former president of the U.S. Track and Field Coaches Assn., was head track and field coach at Abilene Christian, now a university, from 1948 to 1963. His teams won National Assn. of Intercollegiate Athletics titles in 1952, 1954 and 1955. In 1964, he coached the national team during its pre-Olympic tour.

At Abilene Christian, Jackson coached three U.S. Olympic team members: sprinter Bobby Joe Morrow, quarter-miler Earl Young and pole-vaulter Billy Pemelton.

Morrow won gold medals at the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne, Australia, in the 100 and 200 meters and 400 relay. Young won a gold medal in the 1960 Olympics in Rome in the 1,600-meter relay, and Pemelton finished eighth in the pole vault in the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo.

A 1959 Sports Illustrated article called Jackson “probably the best relay coach in the United States.”

Born in Denison, Texas, on July 17, 1920, Jackson was an accomplished athlete who won the long jump at the Texas high school state championship. He went on to play football and run track at Abilene Christian, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in education.

He served in the Army during World War II and received a master’s degree in education from the University of North Texas in 1953.