University of Georgia Athletics
Quick Chat: Garrett Scantling
April 15, 2020 | Track & Field, The Frierson Files
By John Frierson
Staff Writer
Garrett Scantling, the former Georgia track and field All-American and three-time SEC heptathlon champion, was doing the improbable in 2020. He was in the midst of a great comeback story that he hoped would conclude at the Tokyo Olympics this summer, but the coronavirus pandemic has put that story, like everything else, on hold for a while.
After narrowly missing out on making the U.S. Olympic Team in the decathlon in 2016, Scantling decided that it was time to step away from the track. Even though he hadn't played football since his high school days back in Jacksonville, Fla., he signed a free-agent deal with the Atlanta Falcons and then his hometown Jaguars. When the football dream didn't pan out, the former Bulldog (2012-16) who earned a degree in financial planning went to work at Principal Financial Group.
In all, Scantling was away from track and field for three years before he mounted his comeback late last year. In his second meet back, at the USATF Indoor Combined Events Championships in February, Scantling came back strong, winning the event with the eighth-best performance in U.S. history and what remains the second-best score in 2020.
During a recent Quick Chat, Scantling, who is working as an intern with the Georgia track program, talked about his comeback, his time in the NFL, binge-watching "One Tree Hill" and much more. Here's some of what he had to say:
Frierson: As an athlete, how are you handling the current situation? Are you still training?
Scantling: As of right now, I'm trying to stay as active as I can without trying to do too much. I'll go do stairs or do mileage runs, just anything to keep my fitness up. As for actually training and having a strict schedule, that's out the window for now.
In mid-summer, I hope, is when we're going to pick back up and start transitioning to next year. For now, it's just going on runs and trying to stay as active as I can so that I'm not cooped up and not doing anything.
Frierson: You've had quite a journey over the last few years to get back to competing again and getting the win at the U.S. Championships earlier this year. What have the last few years been like?
Scantling: I came in fourth at the Olympic Trials (the top three got to the Games) and after that, I sat down with my family and we just went over my options at the time. I was graduating and we were kind of wondering what was next. Track had kind of taken a backseat to all the other things I wanted to do at the time, and one of my dreams was to play football.
My dad has a bunch of contacts in Jacksonville that are connected to the NFL world ... so I told my dad I wanted to give it a shot and he got me in contact with a bunch of coaches. Over the next three or four months, it was all football, training, training, training. ...
I was signed by the Falcons and I was with them through the offseason training and training camp, and during training camp I was cut. I went to the Jaguars after that for the first part of their preseason training camp, and then when I got cut from there that was when I said, sports has been such a big part of my life for so long but it's time to take another step.
That's when I went into financial planning in Jacksonville. It's definitely been a journey, that's for sure.
Frierson: Was there a sense of a missed opportunity with football, like if you'd gone that route in college instead of track and field maybe the NFL dream could have come true?
Scantling: I think athletically, I was there if not better than most of the guys. Just being from a track background and having that sprint work and strength work, that kind of had me ahead of where a lot of guys were. I think that the classroom and being able to adjust your route in real-time or read coverages when you're on the line of scrimmage, and just knowing where to break your route off, that's the experience that I missed by not playing college football.
I could definitely feel the gaps in those areas, but athletically, running, catching, anything along those lines, I was perfectly fine. It was just learning the actual game, watching film and all the things that you don't have to do in track.
Frierson: You come back after a three-year break and you seem to come back better than ever — how did that happen?
Scantling: Since I hadn't done a multi in three years, I had to get a qualifying score to go to (the U.S. Championships), so I did a meet at Kentucky. I (did a personal record) in that first meet by almost 100 points, so that a really big thing for me coming back. I didn't want to come back and go through the motions.
When I started training I could feel myself ahead of where I was in 2016 when I stopped and that's why I knew that this year was going to be something special. That meet in Kentucky validated everything that I'd been working toward and it was a perfect start to what I needed to do.
Frierson: You go to the U.S. Indoors and you crush it, so then you're really thinking about the Olympic Trials and Tokyo. Then the coronavirus comes along and everything all over the world comes to a halt. What was your reaction when the Olympics were postponed to 2021?
Scantling: The coronavirus was lingering in the background for a while. After USA's, I would have qualified for the World Athletics Indoor Championships, but those were going to be in Nanjing, China. ... That would have been a really good chance for me since I was No. 1 in the world at the time. That was kind of the first thing that the coronavirus impacted for me. ...
I put in a lot of work coming back this year and it would have been great to reap the benefits of my labor, so the Olympics being postponed hit hard at first. But just knowing that we'll try again next year and I get to spend another year around here helping these Georgia athletes and help myself become a better coach and better person, and have another year of adjusting to the decathlon and being that much better, I just feel like this next year is going to be an incredible year for me and a lot of other Georgia Bulldogs, as well.
Frierson: What is the best meal you've ever had? Is there one that stands out above the rest?
Scantling: When I got back from Olympic Trials, me and a couple of friends took me out to cheer me up and we went to Ruth's Chris. It had been a while since I'd been to a Ruth's Chris for a steak dinner. Just the fact that my friends were there for me and they knew how hard the past couple of weeks had been for me with not being able to make the team and everything, that dinner meant a lot to me.
I also love steak and asparagus, that's kind of my go-to meal — [laughs] I guess the asparagus part is kind of weird. I'm not real big into greens but when it comes to asparagus I'm a big, big vegetable guy.
Frierson: What movie have you seen more than any other?
Scantling: Ooh, "Transformers." I am a huge "Transformers" guy, not to say I grew up with the cartoon and everything, I think I just had a really big crush on Megatron from the first movie [laughs] and it kind of got me hooked. It became my favorite franchise of movies.
I'm really a big TV guy now and I guess chick-flick TV shows are kind of my thing. I'll watch "One Tree Hill" or "Vampire Diaries" a lot [laughs]. They're shows on Netflix that I can binge-watch. They're interesting and they show you a spectrum of what other people go through in a world that I have no clue about. I'm everything sports and these shows are everyday problems and family issues. They're cool shows to watch.
"One Tree Hill" has got to be my favorite all-time show. I'm enjoying myself binge-watching some TV shows these days, that's for sure.
(This Q&A was lightly edited for length and clarity.)
Staff Writer
Garrett Scantling, the former Georgia track and field All-American and three-time SEC heptathlon champion, was doing the improbable in 2020. He was in the midst of a great comeback story that he hoped would conclude at the Tokyo Olympics this summer, but the coronavirus pandemic has put that story, like everything else, on hold for a while.
After narrowly missing out on making the U.S. Olympic Team in the decathlon in 2016, Scantling decided that it was time to step away from the track. Even though he hadn't played football since his high school days back in Jacksonville, Fla., he signed a free-agent deal with the Atlanta Falcons and then his hometown Jaguars. When the football dream didn't pan out, the former Bulldog (2012-16) who earned a degree in financial planning went to work at Principal Financial Group.
In all, Scantling was away from track and field for three years before he mounted his comeback late last year. In his second meet back, at the USATF Indoor Combined Events Championships in February, Scantling came back strong, winning the event with the eighth-best performance in U.S. history and what remains the second-best score in 2020.
During a recent Quick Chat, Scantling, who is working as an intern with the Georgia track program, talked about his comeback, his time in the NFL, binge-watching "One Tree Hill" and much more. Here's some of what he had to say:
Frierson: As an athlete, how are you handling the current situation? Are you still training?
Scantling: As of right now, I'm trying to stay as active as I can without trying to do too much. I'll go do stairs or do mileage runs, just anything to keep my fitness up. As for actually training and having a strict schedule, that's out the window for now.
In mid-summer, I hope, is when we're going to pick back up and start transitioning to next year. For now, it's just going on runs and trying to stay as active as I can so that I'm not cooped up and not doing anything.
Frierson: You've had quite a journey over the last few years to get back to competing again and getting the win at the U.S. Championships earlier this year. What have the last few years been like?
Scantling: I came in fourth at the Olympic Trials (the top three got to the Games) and after that, I sat down with my family and we just went over my options at the time. I was graduating and we were kind of wondering what was next. Track had kind of taken a backseat to all the other things I wanted to do at the time, and one of my dreams was to play football.
My dad has a bunch of contacts in Jacksonville that are connected to the NFL world ... so I told my dad I wanted to give it a shot and he got me in contact with a bunch of coaches. Over the next three or four months, it was all football, training, training, training. ...
I was signed by the Falcons and I was with them through the offseason training and training camp, and during training camp I was cut. I went to the Jaguars after that for the first part of their preseason training camp, and then when I got cut from there that was when I said, sports has been such a big part of my life for so long but it's time to take another step.
That's when I went into financial planning in Jacksonville. It's definitely been a journey, that's for sure.
Frierson: Was there a sense of a missed opportunity with football, like if you'd gone that route in college instead of track and field maybe the NFL dream could have come true?
Scantling: I think athletically, I was there if not better than most of the guys. Just being from a track background and having that sprint work and strength work, that kind of had me ahead of where a lot of guys were. I think that the classroom and being able to adjust your route in real-time or read coverages when you're on the line of scrimmage, and just knowing where to break your route off, that's the experience that I missed by not playing college football.
I could definitely feel the gaps in those areas, but athletically, running, catching, anything along those lines, I was perfectly fine. It was just learning the actual game, watching film and all the things that you don't have to do in track.
Frierson: You come back after a three-year break and you seem to come back better than ever — how did that happen?
Scantling: Since I hadn't done a multi in three years, I had to get a qualifying score to go to (the U.S. Championships), so I did a meet at Kentucky. I (did a personal record) in that first meet by almost 100 points, so that a really big thing for me coming back. I didn't want to come back and go through the motions.
When I started training I could feel myself ahead of where I was in 2016 when I stopped and that's why I knew that this year was going to be something special. That meet in Kentucky validated everything that I'd been working toward and it was a perfect start to what I needed to do.
Frierson: You go to the U.S. Indoors and you crush it, so then you're really thinking about the Olympic Trials and Tokyo. Then the coronavirus comes along and everything all over the world comes to a halt. What was your reaction when the Olympics were postponed to 2021?
Scantling: The coronavirus was lingering in the background for a while. After USA's, I would have qualified for the World Athletics Indoor Championships, but those were going to be in Nanjing, China. ... That would have been a really good chance for me since I was No. 1 in the world at the time. That was kind of the first thing that the coronavirus impacted for me. ...
I put in a lot of work coming back this year and it would have been great to reap the benefits of my labor, so the Olympics being postponed hit hard at first. But just knowing that we'll try again next year and I get to spend another year around here helping these Georgia athletes and help myself become a better coach and better person, and have another year of adjusting to the decathlon and being that much better, I just feel like this next year is going to be an incredible year for me and a lot of other Georgia Bulldogs, as well.
Frierson: What is the best meal you've ever had? Is there one that stands out above the rest?
Scantling: When I got back from Olympic Trials, me and a couple of friends took me out to cheer me up and we went to Ruth's Chris. It had been a while since I'd been to a Ruth's Chris for a steak dinner. Just the fact that my friends were there for me and they knew how hard the past couple of weeks had been for me with not being able to make the team and everything, that dinner meant a lot to me.
I also love steak and asparagus, that's kind of my go-to meal — [laughs] I guess the asparagus part is kind of weird. I'm not real big into greens but when it comes to asparagus I'm a big, big vegetable guy.
Frierson: What movie have you seen more than any other?
Scantling: Ooh, "Transformers." I am a huge "Transformers" guy, not to say I grew up with the cartoon and everything, I think I just had a really big crush on Megatron from the first movie [laughs] and it kind of got me hooked. It became my favorite franchise of movies.
I'm really a big TV guy now and I guess chick-flick TV shows are kind of my thing. I'll watch "One Tree Hill" or "Vampire Diaries" a lot [laughs]. They're shows on Netflix that I can binge-watch. They're interesting and they show you a spectrum of what other people go through in a world that I have no clue about. I'm everything sports and these shows are everyday problems and family issues. They're cool shows to watch.
"One Tree Hill" has got to be my favorite all-time show. I'm enjoying myself binge-watching some TV shows these days, that's for sure.
(This Q&A was lightly edited for length and clarity.)
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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