The NCAA Men's Outdoor Track and Field Championships begin in the afternoon on June 8th and continue on until late in the day on June 11th. The Championships will take place in Des Moines, Iowa and are hosted by the Drake University Bulldogs.
The Gators qualified 16 slots (including another 8 on the women's side) not including decathlon and heptathlon athletes Gray Horn and Brittany Harrell respectively.
Head track and field coach Mike Holloway had this to say:
“We’re excited about being here in Des Moines. It has been a very successful season up to this point. On the women’s side, we’re very young, but we’ve got nine scoring opportunities and we’re very excited about the future of the women’s program. On the men’s side, we’ve got a great bunch of young men and I think we are in the conversation for the team title.”
After the jump are more quotes from coach Holloway, and all the viewing information you will ever need.
Coach Holloway on what it would mean to win the Outdoor NCAA Championship:
“I think anytime you can win a championship, it’s big. It would be big for us because it would be the first time we would have ever won one on the men’s or the women’s side. It would be historical in nature. The thing for us is that it’s not a big focus. We’re not talking about winning the championship; we’re talking about individual performances. I always tell my team that there’s a computer that keeps the score; we just need to give it a reason to do its job. It would be big for the University of Florida and our athletic program as a whole, but we’re just talking about performing well at a high level.”
Coach on Jeff Demps in the 100m:
“Jeff has done a wonderful job of handling the spotlight of being a football player. I think the thing that people forget is that Jeff probably came in more celebrated as a track guy. He is the world junior record holder. The challenge for Jeff has been to handle the pressure of everybody expecting him to run 9.9 every time he steps on the track. He has handled that very well. His progression has gone very well. He’s had a great season and has been the 60-meter champion the last two years in a row. If you ever got a chance to sit down and talk to Jeff, he is just an incredibly humble young man. He comes out every day and works hard. If you didn’t know who he was, you would never know what he has accomplished just by watching him walk around and just by how hard he works every day. We are very excited about where he is right now, but he understands there are 23 other great competitors here and he needs to be ready to do his job this weekend.”
The broadcast information is as follows:
June 10th: 7:30-9:30pm ET on CBS College Sports
June 11th: 1:00-3:00pm ET on CBS (National Network)
Also, for your viewing pleasure, the championships can be viewed (when not on CBS) through various outlets like NCAA.com Track and Field and on the Go Drake Bulldogs website.
Flash Results will have up to the second results and standings throughout the Championships, as well as the Track and Field section of GatorZone.com.
GatorZone will even be out and about on Twitter. You can follow them @GZTrackField.
Good luck Gators!