The University of Texas at Austin Athletics
Hall of Honor
- Induction:
- 2022
- Class:
- 1986
A Track & Field All-American and member of the 1982 Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW) Outdoor National Championship and 1985 Southwest Conference Championship squads, Robyne Johnson has continued to pour into the sport as a highly successful coach for the past 27 years. As a student-athlete, Johnson teamed with record-setting national champion Terri Turner to form one of the nation’s top jumping duos. A three-time All-American in the triple jump, she finished second only to Turner at the NCAA Outdoor Championship in 1984 and was fifth in both indoors and outdoors in 1985. She helped lead Texas to its first-ever Southwest Conference Championships in Track & Field, sweeping both the indoor and outdoor team titles in 1985. Johnson also scored points for a Longhorn team that was the NCAA Indoor Championship runner-up in 1985 and placed sixth outdoors that year, as well. Prior to NCAA competition, she was a freshman on the UT squad that won the AIAW national title and Southwest Conference Invitational in 1982, the prequel to the official conference championship that began in 1983. Johnson competed in the Olympic Trials four times from 1988-2000 and earned a bid to the 1991 World Championships in Seville, Spain, where she finished ninth in the triple jump. She ranked in the top-10 in the nation in the triple jump for 10 years and ranked seventh in the world in 1992. A 1986 UT graduate with a degree in history, she went on to earn a master’s in education from California State University-Hayward. After her days as a competitor, the native of Oakland, Calif., launched a distinguished coaching career in Track & Field, where she’s in her 18th year as a head coach. She’s currently entering her fourth season as Director of Track & Field/Cross Country at Cal, the place the former Berkeley High School prep All-American launched her career as an assistant coach from 1995-2003. In between, Johnson spent 14 years as the Director of Track & Field/Cross Country for Boston University. While leading the Terrier program, she won nine conference track & field titles, five conference cross country titles and was named Coach of the Year seven times by the America East Conference and three times by the Patriot League. She was also a three-time winner of the USTFCCCA Northeast Indoor Track & Field Women’s Coach of the Year award. Among the numerous international coaching selections Johnson has received, she served as an assistant coach for Team USA’s Olympic Women’s Track & Field squad, working with the multi-events and jumps, at the 2016 Games in Rio and the 2020 Tokyo Games. She also spent five years on the NCAA Division I Track & Field committee from 2006-11.
