Battle Through Adversity Makes Title More Meaningful for UF's Holloway
Sunday, March 13, 2011 | Track and Field
Florida head coach Mike Holloway knows how difficult it can be to win an NCAA Championship.
That's why when the prognosticators were estimating anywhere from a 35-40 point win for the No. 1 Gator men heading into College Station, Holloway knew it wouldn't be that easy.
After battling through a weekend that featured more than its fair share of twists and turns, Florida became just the fourth different men's program in NCAA Division I history to win back-to-back NCAA Indoor Championships.
“This one was special because we had to fight hard for it,” Holloway said. “Not that we didn't fight hard last year, but we went through some adversity yesterday, and everybody wanted to write us off and say that we were done. I challenged our guys last night to just come out here and be who we are. We didn't do anything special, we just did what the Gators do. I'm very proud of our team.”
The path to Florida's first NCAA Indoor Championship a year ago wasn't an easy one.
Since 2004, at each of the major championship meets combined, Holloway's Gators placed second six different times in 12 total meets, as the national title evaded Florida on each of those occasions. His team broke through the barrier last season, winning in Fayetteville, Ark., with 57 total team points, defeating second-place Texas A&M and Oregon by 13 points.
Entering the meet as a heavy favorite, the Gators suffered what some believed to be a big blow on Friday when sophomore sprinter Tony McQuay injured his hamstring after running the fastest time in the preliminaries of the 400-meter dash and was unable to finish the preliminaries of the men's 200-meter dash. After senior thrower Kemal Mesic failed to make the finals of the men's shot put due to a hand injury, some doubters began to question whether the Gators could complete a repeat of their national title.
Holloway had predicted his team would score between 12-15 points on the opening day of the NCAA Indoor Championships. At the end of the day on Friday, the Gators had eight.
A spectacular performance in the long jump by junior Will Claye capped off the team's opening day on a high note as the junior transfer placed second in the long jump after entering the event seeded eighth. He recorded the second-best jump in school history in the process.
“We had some bad luck yesterday,” Holloway said. “People wanted to know what was wrong with Florida. There was nothing wrong with Florida – we just had a bad day. We had a lot of fight in us and we showed that today.”
After the opening day, Holloway called his team together in the warm-up area and told them everything would be fine if they stayed within themselves. They responded to that challenge.
“It just took some focus,” Holloway said. “It's always easy to look at the negative things, but we did a lot of good things yesterday too. We had some adversity yesterday, but I told them that true champions respond to adversity.”
Less than 24-hours later, Holloway was soaked in a Gatorade bath provided by sophomore sprinter Jeff Demps, who captured his second consecutive NCAA Indoor Championship in the men's 60-meter dash, using a school-record time of 6.53.
The key to success for Florida's Holloway?
“It was a total-team effort,” he said. “We're a team and a family, and we look after each other.”
