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Gator Watch: Track and Field It's Great to be a Gator
Head Coach Mike Holloway“If you had told me earlier this year that the women were going to win, I [would have] told you we had a chance,” Head Coach Mike Holloway said. “But to watch these ladies trust and believe in each other, trust and believe in the coaching staff and have it come together was incredible.”
The men also did well at the event, placing second and claiming individual titles in the 4x100 relay, 200 and 400 meter dashes and, for the first time ever, the decathlon. It was a great start to the postseason after a year of blazing times and broken records – in other words, a typical year for the Florida track and field squads.
As with many Gator sports, the track and field program has a history of excellence. During the years Florida has amassed 31 NCAA titles, more than 400 All-America honors and 20 top-ten finishes at NCAA meets. This year the teams were ranked in the top 25 for much of the season, with the men staying in the top 10 the entire year.
Even with this history, the finish at the SECs was still a thrill, especially since the women were unranked at the beginning of the meet and faced the likes of #4 LSU and #12 Tennessee. Though the men were highly ranked, at the end of the second day, they were tied for sixth in the meet while the women were in third.
That’s when things got exciting. When the men’s team was down 50 points, freshman Gray Horn came from behind to win the decathlon. It was the first title ever in that event for Florida, and his score of 7,389 total points broke the Gator freshman record previously set by Mike Morrison.
“It’s one of those things you dream about your whole life, knowing you’re going to have to run that last event hard,” Horn said. “As a decathlete it’s something that you think about that you dread. But my team members and coaching staff really helped me through it all, just yelling me through the whole thing, and it all came together when it needed to.”
Junior thrower Mariam Kevkhishvili won the shot put with an SEC record throw distance of 59-2.75/18.05m. Kevkhishvili, who is also a 2004 and 2008 Olympian for her home country of Georgia, was one of many Gators named to the All-SEC first team for her efforts this year. She adds this SEC individual title to her 2009 NCAA Indoor title in the same event.
For the men, junior sprinter Calvin Smith captured the 400-meter dash title and was a member of the championship 4x100 team. This year he was also named the 2009 Outdoor Men’s Runner of the Year and won the 2009 SEC Outdoor Commissioner’s Trophy (given to the athlete with the highest point total). Several other Gators earned individual titles, including the steeplechase (freshman Genevieve LaCaze, who won the event despite having never run the steeplechase until this year), triple jump (junior Shara Proctor), javelin (junior Evelien Dekkers threw a lifetime best distance of 173-11/53.02m) and the 200-meter dash (junior Jeremy Hall).
The Gator squads are stacked with established veterans and talented newcomers, which brings the versatility that is the cornerstone of Holloway’s philosophy. “The first thing is that we want balance here, and that’s important to us if we’re going to be a championship program,” Holloway said. “Everyone talks about track and field being an individual sport, but I start off being a team and then we branch out to the individuals. But I think the bottom line here is that the individuals make the team. In order for us to be successful, each individual has to line up and do their job.”
Holloway has been with the Gators since 1995, first as an assistant coach and then as the men’s head coach in 2002. He took over women’s coaching duties after the passing of coach Tom Jones in 2007, and under Holloway the joint program has continued to thrive.
With the NCAA postseason underway, the Florida track and field programs show no signs of slowing down. Next January they’ll start it all again with indoor competition in another effort to cap off a great year of Gator sports!
For Florida track and field event and ticket information, contact the Gator Ticket Office at (352) 375-4683.