Legendary Middle Tennessee State University track and field coach Dean Hayes died Friday, MTSU athletics announced. He was 84.

Hayes was in his 57th season coaching the Blue Raiders' programs and 63rd year overall. He began his Blue Raider career in 1965 with the men's track and field program. He began also coaching the MTSU women in 1987.

On top of the success, Hayes was a U.S. coach at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, Korea.

FROM 2015: Hayes still going strong 50 years later

FROM 2016: MTSU's Hayes named USTFCCCA Coach of the Year

The Dean A. Hayes Track and Soccer Stadium at MTSU is named in his honor.

"Words can't express what Dean Hayes has meant to MTSU, the MTSU track and field program, international track and field, and the thousands of people whose lives he has impacted through his work," MTSU Director of Athletics Chris Massaro said in a news release.

"He is on the Mount Rushmore of Middle Tennessee, and not just athletics. Coach Hayes was a pioneer and an institution at MTSU. He will be sorely missed by the community, the University, and all of his former and present student-athletes. Our thoughts and prayers are with his wife Jan and his daughters Erin and Kara."

Hayes guided the MTSU programs to 29 Ohio Valley Conference titles, 18 Sun Belt championships and 20 NCAA top-25 finishes.

His athletes have earned 124 All-America honors, four have become national champions and several have competed internationally in the Olympics , World University Games and Pan-American Games.

He won four Conference USA titles (three women's titles, one men) after MTSU joined the league in 2011. He won 15 coach of the year awards in the Ohio Valley Conference, 15 in the Sun Belt and three in C-USA.

In 1981, he was named the Track and Field Coaches Association NCAA Outdoor Coach of the Year and served as president of the organization in 1982-83.

Hayes has coached five NCAA champions, most recently Kigen Chemadi, who won the 3,000-meter steeplechase title last June.

As well as his Olympic coaching stint, Hayes worked the World University Games in Kobe, Japan (1985); Goodwill Games in Seattle (1990); World Cup in London (1994); World Championships in Athens, Greece (1997); Goodwill Games in New York (1998) and as an assistant at the World University Games in Bucharest, Romania (1981) and the World Championships in Helsinki (1983).

The Naperville, Illinois, native was inducted into the Blue Raider Hall of Fame in 1982, the Illinois Sports Hall of Fame in 1993, the Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame in 1994 and the United States Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 2008.

He is also in the hall of fame at his alma mater, Lake Forest (Ill.) College, where he competed in track and field and also coached.

Hayes was one of the first coaches to integrate African-American scholarship athletes into the Blue Raiders’ athletic program. In the fall of 1965, he recruited Jerry Singleton to join the track team and Singleton became the first African-American scholarship athlete to compete for MTSU.

He was also influential in the formation of the Tennessee Secondary Schools Athletic Association Spring Fling (along with former TSSAA Executive Director Ronnie Carter), which is now held in Murfreesboro.

Hayes is survived by his wife Jan, daughters Erin and Kara and sister Judy .

A private funeral will be held for family, a family spokesperson said. However, plans are underway for a public celebration of life at a date and time to be determined.

This article originally appeared on Murfreesboro Daily News Journal: Dean Hayes, legendary Middle Tennessee State track coach, dies at 84