A CONVERSATION WITH CARL LEWIS
Carl Lewis took some time with us to touch on coaching, athlete development, and where he sees the sport heading. Lewis enters his fourth season as head coach at the University of Houston, and the program has produced two of the more unlikely success stories in recent track history.
Louie Hinchliffe is one of them. The British sprinter was a competitive junior golfer until he was 17, once played alongside future pros at his home club. He also ran in high school but finished last in his English Schools 100m final. He didn't take sprinting seriously until he landed at Houston under Lewis, and he quickly dropped his personal best to 10.00, then to a wind-aided 9.84 that was the fastest 100m in the world that year. He made the 2024 Paris Olympics for Great Britain and won bronze in the 4x100m relay. After a detour training elsewhere and a lost 2025 season to injury, he's back at Houston this year working with Lewis again.
Lewis has also spent the past year as one of the loudest voices in college sports pushing for structural change to how Olympic sports get funded as football and basketball absorb more of the new money flowing through direct-payment models. He's pointed out that of the more than 100 athletes on his own roster, only a handful will ever make a living as professional track athletes, and he wants a system that still gives the rest a real path through a degree.