(Born November 24, 1970) Kelly Blair-LaBounty is widely regarded as being among the University of Oregon’s greatest student athletes having won the NCAA Heptathlon title as a junior and qualifying for two Olympic Games.
Born in 1970, Kelly Blair grew up in central Washington and won two basketball state titles as well as 10 individual titles in track and field at Prosser High School. She won the USA Track and Field Junior national title in 1989 in the heptathlon.
Blair moved to Eugene as a two-sport athlete, but focused on track after two seasons on the basketball team (1990-92).
In 1993, she won the Pac-10 and then NCAA title in the heptathlon and won the Bronze medal at the World University Games. In ’96, she won the U.S. National title and qualified for the Atlanta Summer Olympic Games, where she finished eighth. She again won the US title in ’97 and ’98 and qualified for the 2000 Sydney Summer Olympics, but did not compete due to injury.
Following her athletic career, she became a coach at Seattle Pacific University, the University of Oregon and married former Oregon football standout Matt LaBounty.
She was inducted to the Oregon Athletics Hall of Fame in 2004 and the Oregon Sports Hall of Fame in 2011.