UF To Host 67th Pepsi Florida Relays
Monday, March 28, 2011 | Track and Field
· Link to Accepted Entries for 2011 Florida Relays
A full complement of Florida track and field athletes, along with some of the top high school, college and post-collegiate athletes in the country will descend on Percy Beard Track at James G. Pressly Stadium this weekend as the University of Florida plays host to the 67th Pepsi Florida Relays this Friday and Saturday.
Gates open at 9 a.m. ET each day for the meet's 10 a.m. ET start on both Friday and Saturday. Admission is $10 for adults, $5 for children and $1 for UF students with a valid UF student ID per day. Live results for the meet may be found at www.deltatiming.com. Complete coverage of the Pepsi Florida Relays can be found at www.gatorzone.com/trackfield/floridarelays.
The Florida Relays began more than 70 years ago in 1939, thanks to the vision and creativeness of the Gators' legendary head track and field coach Percy Beard. Since that first meet 72 years ago, the Pepsi Florida Relays have grown in epic proportions from the small regional competitions on April Fool's Day that featured 209 competitors, to one of the nation's premier track and field meets.
The Florida Relays were established after the Southern Relays, held at Georgia Tech, were discontinued in the 1930s. Coach Beard was forced to create a new meet or travel hundreds of miles north to Philadelphia for the Penn Relays. Beard's coaching peers throughout the southeast were receptive to the idea and the Florida Relays were born.
Since its inception, the Florida Relays has grown in both stature and size. Previously regarded nationally as the first major event of the collegiate outdoor track and field season, the Relays once swelled from a one-day inaugural event featuring slightly more than 200 athletes to a four-day extravaganza that attracted more than 3,000 athletes from the high school, collegiate and international ranks.
Starting with the 2007 Florida Relays, athletes have the benefit of running on a completely renovated track. More than $650,000 was poured into a new Mondo surface, which included installing an additional 30 feet of track space at the southwest corner of the stadium.
Since 1959, Percy Beard Track at James G. Pressly Stadium has served as the outdoor home of the Gator track and field program. Recognized as one of the finest collegiate track and field facilities in the nation, the complex provides permanent grandstand seating for 4,500 in addition to increased bleacher seating for special events.
The facility is named after former Gator head coach Percy Beard (1937-63), a world record-holder and Olympian in the high hurdles and a member of the prestigious USA Track and Field Hall of Fame.
