Coach Nile Legania earns his 13th HBCU Makeda Excellence Award

NEW ORLEANS (August 26,2025)– On August 20, the Rice F.A.M.E. Group announced their fourth annual HBCU Makeda Excellence Awardees. The Rice FAME Group acknowledges 15 sports including band and reaches out to 78 Historically Black Colleges and Universities to nominate their most outstanding athletes and coaches. 

According to the Rice FAME Group, " the selection process is rigorous and peer-driven: athletic representatives of all 78 programs are asked to submit their picks, and ballots go out to head coaches and band directors across the NAIA, NCAA, NCCAA, and the USCAA." 

Dillard swept the women's track and field category. Kevell Byrd won her second consecutive Women's Track & Field Athlete of the Year award and Legania won his third consecutive Women's Track & Field Coach of the Year, making this his 13th consecutive award in the cross country/ track & field category. 

Legania is the head coach of the men and women's track and field teams as well as the men and women's cross country teams. During the 2024-25 season, both women's teams were able to secure their fourth consecutive conference championship, cross country with 35 points and track with a total of 277 points , which nearly doubled the runner-up. He then took 11 athletes, five women and six men, to NAIA Nationals in Marion, Indiana where they competed for the Red Banner. Though neither team was able to bring the banner home, they did not return empty-handed. The teams returned home with six All-Americans total. Two of those were earned by Kevell Byrd. She was national runner-up in the 200m with a time of 23.51s and third place in the 100m with a time of 11.59s. The other four came from the men's side where Mark Emilien, Jamaal Morris Jr., Markel Myles, and Darren Petty Jr. earned third place in the 4x400m with a time of 3:11.86.

Legania will only continue to hold his athletes to a winning standard, "We've been doing it for the past four years, we can't stop now." He's ready and excited to see his recruiting class in action as the men have not had the same success as the women. "Coach Scruggs went out and recruited some dogs, so I'm excited and I know they are too."

He and his cross country teams are ready for their first meet of the season, which is the Battle of New Orleans at UNO on August 29 at 5:15 p.m. 

-Bleu Devils-