Big loss for UK athletics as he is leaving to take the head coaching job at the University of Texas... Good luck to coach he has done a fantastic job at UK. Next guy will have big shoes to fill, but thanks to excellent facilities that have been built for UK track in the last 10-15 years it should be an attractive job.
Track Coach Floreal...
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I didn't know his name,but he has done a great job with the kids he has brought in and has recruited some real stars to UK. I can't come up with their names,but the female hurdler and the frosh 400 girl are amazing track athletes.
Eldrick Floreal and Sydney McLaughlin is the young ladies name...she is turning pro and will likely be Olympic champion.
Yeah, that's right, so McLaughin is turning pro after just 1 year at UK? Don't doubt her being an Olympic champion, barring serious injury probably in multiple Olympics, very talented young lady.
I believe it will take more than that to replace him. The reason he's going to be impossible to replace is that so many of the best sprinters in the country come to Lexington to work out specifically because of Floreal. McLaughin came to UK specifically because the best sprinters in the country were already here. So losing Floreal means those top athletes will probably follow him to Texas. It's not just the training facilities that will make a difference. Losing Floreal is basically like losing Cal.
It sucks but with Texas' checkbook there's no one, save maybe Oregon if Phil Knight really wanted to because it's track, that could outbid them.
After having Floreal in place I would hope that MB would go after a top HC, the reference to the assistants was did Floreal take his whole staff with him?
Yep, we can not get into bidding wars with Texas schools, unfortunately.
Be careful complementing the track and field facilities. Jauk will be by soon to hammer Mitch for spending money on non football stuff. But I agree he’s been real good for UK
Floreal's specialty has been hurdlers having coached Keni Harrison...the current 100 hurdles world record holder, Jasmin Camacho-Quinn 2016,2018 NCAA champion 100 hurdles... and of course McLaughlin...
Keni Harrison went into the 2016 Olympic Trials as the favorite to make the US team...the top 3 qualify...and didn't make it. The week after the trials she set a new world record.
I don't doubt he will go after the best. My point was the reason we've taken off the way we did is that Olympic class athletes train here. Because of that talented high schoolers like McLaughlin was wanted to come here. The next hire may in fact be the 2nd best coach in the country but if he can't make Lexington a gathering place for Olympic sprinters it's likely the top talent won't follow. Basically what Floreal did is very similar to Cal make UK the place for One and Dones.
It's not impossible for the next coach to succeed but the margin of error is incredibly small. Again going back to the Cal comparison. If Cal leaves we can get the next best coach in the country but if he merely signs top 20 level talent then he's already a let down. The guy replacing Floreal is going to have the same problem. We might get someone really good but if the talent doesn't follow then he's got his work cut out for him.
I watched all those races, linked the world record on here. Hate the idea of losing our coach, losing McLaughlin maybe even more, she is just getting started.
Money talks, say, anyone mentioned the couple thousand a year difference in UK's COA and the two nearby city colleges lately? That goes to ALL the scholarships, not just football, and a HALF MILLION more would put us at the top for ALL our athletes.
TWELVE MILLION buyouts and not a half million for the athletes to put us at the top, but then I doubt if Stoops could survive if he only got $3,500,000 a year, could you?
No, I didn't think so.
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UK women were also good at the relays, 100 and 400 meters. We also had the NC pole vaulter the past 2 years, and the men's NC in the decathalon this year.
Tim Duckworth, Liv Gruver, Jasmine Canacho Quinn won national titles too and are all likely future Olympians just from this years team alone.
No problem with spending money on the lesser sports, just insist he would have had a LOT more money for them if he hadn't had football on a starvation diet for his first TEN years, while trying to overcome devastating probation. UK football cleared $18,000,000 while basketball cleared about $5,000,000 about 2010, when football was just emerging as THE money cow, do you think basketball ever wanted for anything? Where did the money for all the minor sports success come from, and how was it available when he couldn't replace the folding chairs in the "recruiting room"?
Want more, just ask, plenty of FACTS available.
How much did we lose in donations from football fans, witness the LONG running thread on here where hundreds of fans said they would never donate a cent to football as long as he was in charge of the money? How many millions are we still losing with the 20,000 season ticket holders that bailed out, most never to return?
He didn't have the backbone to stand up to the old crowd.
ANYBODY could throw a lot of money at football now with over $40,000,000 a year (plus bowl money) rolling in from OTHER schools that weren't asleep, STILL losing millions from the disgruntled football fans when we have the best football talent here in decades.
FACTS. Thanks for asking.
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I guess our expertise will have to come in distance or something and start finding the best runners from the African nations. I noticed Alabama had 3 guys finish in the top 4 in the distance race and calculated a nice amount of points from that race.
As people have mentioned it was the hurdlers that UK made a name for-- a big splash at that.
As people have mentioned it was the hurdlers that UK made a name for-- a big splash at that.
Duckworth won the National indoor and outdoor championships in the decathlon, watched the highlights of both big wins live, and I think he was named the National T&F athlete of the week both times, I think McLaughlin was named the female freshman T&F athlete of the week a few times..
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Yes, and his son was quite an athlete also, in track AND basketball, was a walkon in basketball that they thought had quite a bit of potential, a big time athlete.
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Marathon runners, get them from Kenya. They won a lot for a while there, and when asked about it the one said they ran in the mountains, which taught them endurance, and once in a while they ran into a lion on the trail, and that taught them how to run fast as hell.
Don’t forget that good distance runners in track also often double as good cross country runners which is great for both sports or the old killing two birds with one stone theory!
While terrific coaches, Flo and Cal are by no means the only top flight coaches in their sports. UK track isn't anywhere near the 1 and done factory UK Basketball is. Only S McLaughlin is in that catagory, Comacho-Quinn is a jr. T Duckworth is a Sr. and our 2 time NC pole vaughter will be a Sr. next season.
As a UGA fan I an glad we wont be competing against his teams in the conference, but as an SEC fan he is a big loss for the conference, His results speak for themselves.
Except they don't run the marathon in NCAA Track & Field...
There is merit to this since the scholarship limits for Track (12.6 men / 18 women) include Cross Country.
Not many 1 and done track athletes because there are no guaranteed salaries and only the top athletes are going to get lucrative endorsement deals... you also have to go to Europe to make any money. In track...at least for pro/world class track the money is all concentrated around the World Championships and Olympic years. The World Championships are every 2 years...the odd years 2017, 2019, 2021 and the Olympics of course are every 4 years with the next ones being in 2020. So one year out of every 4 years there is neither...this was that year and is the biggest reason McLaughlin came to college instead of turning pro as there were few events to run...thus why Keni Harrison was here all year. Plus pro track athletes have to pay their coaches...Sydney got a free year of coaching by coming to college. She also got more notoriety than had she gone to Europe and raced in some meaningless races for little money. She will get a bigger endorsement deal now than had she signed out of high school.
BTW, Camacho-Quinn announced today that she is turning pro.
Hey look everybody, jaukass the troll hijacked yet another thread!!!! How surprising!!!!
It's a discussion board, pretty slow time, why don't you come back when you have something relevant to say?
But I do love how original your insults are, I need to write that one down.
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Assistbyhawkins, holy cow. Where have u been? It's been a while. Good to have u back.
Yeah, we have really missed his rare insights and original name calling, some of his insults I haven't heard since I was a kid, and that was a looonnnng time ago..
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Cal squanderd all that talent and now Reeds 1 year at UK
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