Mike Holloway has led the Gators men's indoor and outdoor teams to nine national titles. (Photo: Courtney Culbreath/UAA Communications)
Holloway Vows to Have U.S. Team Ready When Time Comes
Monday, March 30, 2020 | Track and Field, Scott Carter
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – The stretch ahead was set to be one of the most eventful of his career. It has been, but not the way Mike Holloway or anyone else imagined.
On the afternoon of March 12, Holloway was at the Albuquerque (N.M.) Convention Center preparing the Gators for the NCAA Indoor Track & Field Championships. As the team went through drills, word arrived that the NCAA announced it had canceled March Madness and all remaining winter and spring championships.
By the next morning as the coronavirus pandemic disrupted daily life across the globe, Holloway learned that the Southeastern Conference was suspending all athletic activities, a prelude to more drastic measures put in place since in an attempt to prevent the spread of the virus by limiting the gathering of large groups.
Following a team meeting at the Gators' hotel, Holloway and the student-athletes headed to the airport for return flights home and an uncertain future. The drastic change in plans continue for Holloway, whose summer was already booked as head coach of the U.S. Olympic Team at the Tokyo Olympics.
On Friday, the International Olympic Committee announced the Summer Games were being postponed. And earlier today, the IOC announced the Tokyo Olympics will now start on July 23, 2021. The new reality: instead of 116 days from Monday based on the original schedule, Holloway and the rest of the world now must wait 480 days until the opening ceremony.
The 60-year-old Holloway, who has led the Gators to nine national titles, took the postponement in stride.
"We kind of saw it coming,'' he told WRUF host Steve Russell on Friday. "I just wanted to know. It's hard with our post-collegiate athletes to talk about training for something that was such an uncertainty. The biggest thing for me was just that now we know it's been postponed and we can take that off our plate. I've got a lot of people calling me, worried about me, but I'm fine. I think my major concern, like everybody else, is that we get this thing under control and that we can get back to our normal lives."
If not for the coronavirus pandemic, Holloway would be engaged in one of his busiest weeks of the season with the Pepsi Florida Relays taking place at Percy Beard Track. The three-day event was scheduled to start Thursday and feature some of the sport's top athletes from around the world.
The pace would have picked up from there.
Once the regular season ended at the LSU Invitational in early May, the SEC and NCAA outdoor championships awaited, followed by the U.S. Olympic Trials in Oregon in June and finally, the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo from July 24-Aug. 9.
The opportunity to coach the U.S. Olympic Team is a bucket-list item for Holloway. Already in the U.S. Track & Field/Cross Country Coaches Association Hall of Fame and a nine-time national champion as head coach at Florida, Holloway has accomplished more than he dreamed since his first job as an assistant coach at Gainesville High 37 years ago.
He was an assistant on the 2012 U.S. Team at the London Olympics and is eager to take a turn as head coach, a role that will allow him to continue to work with many athletes with UF ties such as 2019 World Champion hurdler Grant Holloway and two-time gold medalist triple-jumper Christian Taylor.
"The team was going to get chosen in — actually starting the week after NCAA Championships in June,'' Holloway said. "As I explain to a lot of people, it's not like I'm the basketball coach — the whole Olympic team is not coming to Gainesville to be trained by me. I'm more of a figure head. I'm a guy behind the scenes making decisions and making sure that my staff and I get people where they're supposed to be. A lot of what we do is support stuff for the athletes and their personal coaches. For me — and I've said it all along — it's an incredible honor, but I've always wanted to be a coach of Olympic athletes. So, I've been working my butt off to make sure I had some people there to coach.
"I didn't want to just stand around."
That was never going to happen. Holloway is one of the sport's most successful coaches, biggest ambassadors and has tremendous respect in the track and field community.
Whenever everyday life does finally return to normal, he'll resume on the road to Tokyo. For now, he is stressing patience and understanding of the bigger picture.
"It's just wait and see,'' Holloway said. "When the people who get paid to make those decisions decide, they'll let us know and I'll make sure that I have my folks ready to get the job done.
"The biggest thing we need to all do is say a prayer and be thankful for the people in the medical profession because they are the ones that are going through it right now and they're the ones that are going to make sure we get through this in the long run. I'm saying a prayer for them every day."
On the afternoon of March 12, Holloway was at the Albuquerque (N.M.) Convention Center preparing the Gators for the NCAA Indoor Track & Field Championships. As the team went through drills, word arrived that the NCAA announced it had canceled March Madness and all remaining winter and spring championships.
By the next morning as the coronavirus pandemic disrupted daily life across the globe, Holloway learned that the Southeastern Conference was suspending all athletic activities, a prelude to more drastic measures put in place since in an attempt to prevent the spread of the virus by limiting the gathering of large groups.
Following a team meeting at the Gators' hotel, Holloway and the student-athletes headed to the airport for return flights home and an uncertain future. The drastic change in plans continue for Holloway, whose summer was already booked as head coach of the U.S. Olympic Team at the Tokyo Olympics.
On Friday, the International Olympic Committee announced the Summer Games were being postponed. And earlier today, the IOC announced the Tokyo Olympics will now start on July 23, 2021. The new reality: instead of 116 days from Monday based on the original schedule, Holloway and the rest of the world now must wait 480 days until the opening ceremony.
The 60-year-old Holloway, who has led the Gators to nine national titles, took the postponement in stride.
"We kind of saw it coming,'' he told WRUF host Steve Russell on Friday. "I just wanted to know. It's hard with our post-collegiate athletes to talk about training for something that was such an uncertainty. The biggest thing for me was just that now we know it's been postponed and we can take that off our plate. I've got a lot of people calling me, worried about me, but I'm fine. I think my major concern, like everybody else, is that we get this thing under control and that we can get back to our normal lives."
If not for the coronavirus pandemic, Holloway would be engaged in one of his busiest weeks of the season with the Pepsi Florida Relays taking place at Percy Beard Track. The three-day event was scheduled to start Thursday and feature some of the sport's top athletes from around the world.
The pace would have picked up from there.
Once the regular season ended at the LSU Invitational in early May, the SEC and NCAA outdoor championships awaited, followed by the U.S. Olympic Trials in Oregon in June and finally, the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo from July 24-Aug. 9.
The opportunity to coach the U.S. Olympic Team is a bucket-list item for Holloway. Already in the U.S. Track & Field/Cross Country Coaches Association Hall of Fame and a nine-time national champion as head coach at Florida, Holloway has accomplished more than he dreamed since his first job as an assistant coach at Gainesville High 37 years ago.
He was an assistant on the 2012 U.S. Team at the London Olympics and is eager to take a turn as head coach, a role that will allow him to continue to work with many athletes with UF ties such as 2019 World Champion hurdler Grant Holloway and two-time gold medalist triple-jumper Christian Taylor.
"The team was going to get chosen in — actually starting the week after NCAA Championships in June,'' Holloway said. "As I explain to a lot of people, it's not like I'm the basketball coach — the whole Olympic team is not coming to Gainesville to be trained by me. I'm more of a figure head. I'm a guy behind the scenes making decisions and making sure that my staff and I get people where they're supposed to be. A lot of what we do is support stuff for the athletes and their personal coaches. For me — and I've said it all along — it's an incredible honor, but I've always wanted to be a coach of Olympic athletes. So, I've been working my butt off to make sure I had some people there to coach.
"I didn't want to just stand around."
That was never going to happen. Holloway is one of the sport's most successful coaches, biggest ambassadors and has tremendous respect in the track and field community.
Whenever everyday life does finally return to normal, he'll resume on the road to Tokyo. For now, he is stressing patience and understanding of the bigger picture.
"It's just wait and see,'' Holloway said. "When the people who get paid to make those decisions decide, they'll let us know and I'll make sure that I have my folks ready to get the job done.
"The biggest thing we need to all do is say a prayer and be thankful for the people in the medical profession because they are the ones that are going through it right now and they're the ones that are going to make sure we get through this in the long run. I'm saying a prayer for them every day."
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