Christian Petersen - Getty Images
Terrell Wilks looks to lead the Gators track and field team to championship glory.
Don't worry patrons, Theater of Operations will begin its season review Monday morning. In the meantime, it's time for a little track and field!
Last year, the Florida men's track and field program claimed their second straight NCAA Indoor National Championship. While they followed that up with a disappointing third place finish at the Outdoor National Championships, the consensus was, they had a great year. Head coach Mike Holloway was named National Indoor Head Coach of the Year by the USTFCCCA and the Gators ended the season with a ridiculous amount of All-Americans.
On the conference side of things, the Gator men also won the SEC Indoor Conference Championship and finished second in the SEC Outdoor Conference Championship.
The 2012 track and field season starts today at the Alabama Invitational in Birmingham, Alabama. Yes, it's the indoor season and I know that a lot of people consider indoors to be less exciting than the outdoor season, but that still doesn't mean that the results don't matter. Remember, the Gators are looking to capture their third straight Indoor National Championship.
For the 2012 season, the Gators men return twelve Outdoor All-Americans and seven Indoor All-Americans. On top of that, the incoming freshman class was ranked No. 7 nationally -- just behind Arkansas, Oregon, Stanford, Texas and Texas A&M -- by Track and Field News.
After the jump, we'll take a look at Holloway's press conference leading up to the season.
Some of the highlights before the question and answer portion of the press conference were:
The entire press conference video is about nine minutes long. Which you can view below.
0 recs | 9 comments
Thought I was the only.Gatorade fan interested in the track team. Tough to find info though. Anyone know if we have any good distance runners or are we still a primarily sprint and field team?
GatorJustin - January 14, 2012 via mobile
You’re in luck, because I’m very much interested in the track and field team. Mostly because I’m a former cross country and track runner.
As for the distance runners, on the men’s side (which I know a lot more about), we’ve got a few good ones. But they are young. There are like only four or five seniors on the entire team and only one of them are distance runners (Anderson). Two of the seniors are Demps and Hammond, so yeah … count them if you want.
Most of our distance runners (actually, everyone else) are freshman and sophomores with a few juniors sprinkled in, so it’ll be interesting to see how they progress throughout the year.
FlaGators - January 14, 2012
Also, I think (I’m not 100% positive, more like 75%) that results of today will be posted at RollTide.com after the meet is over. Which by looking at the schedule, will be around the same time the basketball team tips off against South Carolina. 7pm or so.
FlaGators - January 14, 2012
PRs? I was 16:50 5k, 10:19 2 mile, and 4:28 mile
GatorJustin - January 14, 2012 via mobile
Oh wow, yeah, you’ve got me beat across the board. I was 18:37 5k, 11:26 2 mile, 4:56 mile. When it came to track, the only event that I would run outside of distance, was the 800m in track. my PR was 2:11 and I only ran somewhat close to that once. Every other time I ran that I was in the 2:20’s-30’s.
I did run the 200m once. Came in 7th (out of 8). Only because the guy who came in 8th place pulled his hamstring finishing up the turn. I ran it just under 26 seconds. It was at the Florida Relays my junior year of high school. I was also the only white guy at the blocks and got a lot of weird looks. But I was trying to qualify for the 2,2,4,8 sprint medley because our regular sprinter for that group was injured. Yeah, I didn’t qualify and thus, our team couldn’t run in that event later in the day.
FlaGators - January 14, 2012
I ran 2:04 in the 8.
Never got to go to the FL Relays. Our school didn’t want to pay for it because none of us would have made a serious challenge.
GatorJustin - January 14, 2012 via mobile
Damn, 2:04. Very nice.
Yeah, my school would only send upperclassmen to the Florida Relays. The only way underclassmen got to go is if they were part of a relay team. That year was the only year I went because senior year, we got a new coach and everything went to crap.
FlaGators - January 14, 2012
I trained with the tri-gators some my freshman year but beer ended that. Those guys were hardcore.
GatorJustin - January 14, 2012 via mobile
Holy crap. Yeah, you couldn’t have paid me to train with those guys for even a hour. I give you serious props for that.
FlaGators - January 14, 2012
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