Mike Holloway Pre-NCAA Indoors Quotes
Thursday, March 12, 2009 | Track and Field
"We are preparing for the NCAA Indoor Championships and I feel very excited about the group we have going. On the women's side, we have defending [shot put] champion Mariam Kevkhishvili along with Keely Medeiros in the shot put. We have Alishea Usery, our freshman 200-meter sprinter, Shara Proctor in the long jump and the triple jump and we also have Charlotte Browning who just ran an NCAA automatic-qualifying time last weekend and the No. 2 time in school history in the mile. On the men's side, we have the 4x400, Jeremy Hall and Terrell Wilks in the 60, Dennis Martin in the 60 hurdles, Christian Taylor in the long jump and triple jump, Calvin Smith in the 400 and also our freshman heptathlete Gray Horn and Carlos Phillips in the 800. We have a broad group on both sides of the coin and we're very excited about this weekend. The plan is for us to go in and just keep getting better. We had probably the best last-chance meet we've ever had here at the University of Florida this past weekend, which I think gives us some momentum going into the championships. Our major goal this weekend is just to go in and take care of the Gators. There's a computer that keeps the scores, so we're not going to worry about what the other teams are doing. We just want to go out on Friday and qualify and come back on Saturday and get the job done in the finals."
On freshman Christian Taylor's remarkable rookie season so far …
"We knew when we recruited Christian that he was a very special athlete. He's a great competitor. I think the biggest thing about Christian is that he knows how to turn up the intensity when it's needed and he does a great job of preparation. He and Coach [Brian] O'Neal have done a great job of putting a plan together and it's coming together right now. Christian is not afraid of the competition and he's not afraid of his own ability and, by that, I mean that he's not afraid to go out there, do his absolute best and be afraid that he's not going to come out on top. He's very confident in what he does."
On the difficulty of junior Mariam Kevkhishvili defending her NCAA shot put title …
"I think anytime you are the defending champion, it kind of depends on who you are and how you operate. Mariam expects to go out and win every competition that she's in, so if it's the Florida Relays, the Auburn Invite or whatever it is, Mariam doesn't go into anything expecting to lose. I don't think there's anymore pressure on Mariam because of the pressure that she puts on herself but, also, when you're the defending champion, that means everybody is pointing to you. They're going to announce that every time you step into the ring. I think Mariam and Coach [Steve] Lemke have done a great job preparing her for this. She has gotten better and better every weekend and I expect that same effort this weekend out of Mariam."
On what he tells the freshman who are participating in their first NCAA meet …
"It's a track meet. The lanes are the same size ?“ with Christian, there's a runway that you have to jump at the end of it, with Alishea, you've got to run 200 meters just like everybody else. I think the thing that gets people in trouble is when they put a tag in front of something. Whether it's the NCAA Championships, the SEC Championships, the World Championships, you still have to go out there and do your job. It's kind of like the old movie Hoosiers, where the guy goes in and measures the basket ?“ how high it is and how far the free-throw line is from it. Obviously, the best people in the country are here, but that doesn't change the fact that you have to go out there and do your job and put your best foot forward. That's what we're going to do."
On the team's performance at last weekend's last-chance meets …
"The window gets smaller when you talk about last-chance meets, so the anxiety goes up a little bit. For Charlotte [Browning], when she came here, one of her goals was to be at the NCAA meet and she knew this was her last chance to do that. For her to go out there and run the second- fastest time in school history was a big accomplishment for her. She's a girl that came here with her best time in the mile at 5-flat last year, so she's just made some miraculous improvements with Coach [Todd] Morgan. With the men's 60, Terrell Wilks is a guy that I like to describe as a guy that is an infant in the sport. He was a guy that was more into football in high school and then he ran track his senior year, so he's still learning a lot. Everything kind of clicked and came together for him this weekend and, again, we've had some pretty good sprinters here and for him to be the best 60-meter guy in school history is a pretty special thing."
On preparing athletes to compete in multiple events at the NCAA meet …
"I think the biggest thing is to take them one at a time. You have to go back to the mentality of the decathlete, or in indoors it's the heptathlete. You have to take them one event at a time. Let's say you run the 60 and it doesn't as well as you want, you have to forget it now and become a long jumper. It's the same thing with guys doing multiple events within the track meet. You have to just take them one at a time. Same thing with the throwers ?“ Let's say a thrower goes out and they don't have a good throw on their first throw, you have to forget about that throw going into the next one and make it better. The biggest thing that we have to do is remind them of the things we do everyday in training. I'm a big proponent of practice makes permanent. We talk about things we do everyday and making things permanent. If we will go to this competition or any other one we go to and just compete the way we practice, we'll be fine."
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