University of Georgia Athletics
IAF 'Huge' For Track and Field Programs
February 17, 2016 | Track & Field
By John Frierson
UGAAA Staff Writer
Think of it as the football indoor building if you want, or some other football-centric variant, but you'll be selling Georgia's in-the-works Indoor Athletic Facility way short. More than football championships will be pursued in the $30 million facility, which two months after the first tons of dirt were removed had its groundbreaking ceremony Tuesday.
In his comments to the gathered crowd of donors and Bulldogs supporters, new football coach Kirby Smart said: "It's going to enhance our ability to prepare and compete at a championship level." Took the words right out of the mouth of men's and women's track and field coach Petros Kyprianou.
Georgia is a rising power in collegiate track and field: the women currently rank No. 3 in the indoor season and the men are No. 8; last spring at the NCAA outdoor championships the women placed fifth for the second year in a row and the men were 15th.
Individual NCAA titles are almost becoming routine in field events and multi-events, but to win team NCAA crowns requires across the board excellence. As Georgia's performances on the track, both in sprints and distance events, go up a few notches, more points will be earned and team championships will be won.
"Maximum speed requires warm weather — it's pretty simple," Kyprianou said after Tuesday's ceremony. And it will be warm inside the new building, even if it's frigid and awful outside. "It's huge for our program."
And just like with football, there's the recruiting angle. Georgia was the last SEC football program without an indoor facility and the last track and field program without one, Kyprianou said. When you're competing for the very best of the best recruits, every little thing matters.
"That edge will help us to go get the sprinters and help us win a national championship," he said. "At the end of the day this is going to put us where we want to be. It's up to me and my staff to get the right people in and get it done."
He's already gotten one of the right people in Kendell Williams, the only student-athlete to speak at Tuesday's ceremony. The junior already has won three individual NCAA titles in her Georgia career: the 2014 and '15 indoor pentathlon titles and the 2014 outdoor heptathlon (and she placed second in the heptathlon in last spring's NCAAs despite a bad ankle).
Before Williams made her short speech, which she said she had practiced dozens of times and mostly memorized, she was given a raving introduction by UGA President Jere W. Morehead. He spent more than a minute bragging about Williams' accomplishments on and off the track, summing up her two-plus years with the Bulldogs by saying that "she has succeeded in every way possible."
"Never in a million years would I have thought that the president of a university would say that about me," said Williams, a huge smile on her face.
Williams said being able to train indoors when the weather is uncooperative — either because it's too cold, too hot and humid or maybe lightning is in the area — is no small thing. There are no shortcuts to track and field success, especially when you do multi-events as she does, and the training has to get done. And the better the training conditions, the better the training.
"We'll be able to move indoors and have that surface to be able to run and work on our speed and our power. We can't sprint as fast as we can [outside] when it's 30 degrees, so that will be great for us," she said. "Also, in the indoor season, for me specifically, I run the 60-meter hurdles, so having that track is going to be a big help. It's just a good environment, to get everybody out of the [outside] conditions and we'll be able to have an effective practice."
The closest thing Georgia's track and field athletes have to an indoor facility at the moment is a clear plastic tent that goes over the high jump area and is heated with the help of a generator. While the high jumpers remain toasty, most everyone else at practice on a cold day will stop by for a bit to get warm.
"Everybody's looking at the tent like, oh my gosh, I wish I was a high jumper," Williams said. "That's why this facility is going to be really good, really cool, and it's going to bring more recruits and enhance UGA to those prospective recruits."
Yes, Georgia's football players will benefit greatly from the massive facility, which will hold a full football field and then some, plus a 65-meter stretch of track, multiple jumping pits, a throwing area and batting cages. The space will be used by all the Bulldogs, J. Reid Parker Director of Athletics Greg McGarity said in his speech to the many donors and supporters that attended the groundbreaking.
"We will see virtually every one of our 550 student-athletes utilizing this facility in some form or fashion annually," McGarity said.
Maybe none more than the runners, jumpers and throwers, all trying to carry their teams to new heights.
John Frierson is the staff writer for the UGA Athletic Association and curator of the ITA Men's Tennis Hall of Fame. You can find his work at: Frierson Files. He's also on Twitter: @FriersonFiles and @ITAHallofFame.
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