Coast Guard Academy renames facility after first black coach

NEW LONDON, Conn. (AP) - The U.S. Coast Guard Academy has named an athletic field house after the school's first African American head coach.

The New London, Connecticut school says the facility will now be known as the Dr. Hallie Gregory Field House.

Gregory, a professor at the academy from 1971 until 1989, became head track coach in 1980. He was also head men's basketball coach from 1984 until 1989 and served as assistant athletics director in 1989.

He was inducted into the academy's athletic hall of fame in 2001. He died in 2017.

The school says Gregory embodied the words "strive to excel, foster unity, instill respect."

Gregory, a native of Rockford, Illinois, was also the first black teacher at Guilford High School in Rockford and first black coach at Moorhead State in Minnesota.