Sept. 11, 2014

COLUMBIA, S.C. – The South Carolina track and field team will hold its annual banquet on Friday night to not only commemorate its achievements from the 2014 season, but also welcome back two of its prominent alumni to speak to the group.

Returning to the University to speak at the event are Me’Lisa Barber (1998-2002) and Greig Cryer (2002-2006).

“Our principle for the banquet is that I’m not an average person, an average student,” head track and field coach Curtis Frye said. “You can’t aspire to be average when you have extraordinary gifts. I hope that the words from our speakers sprinkle down to our captains and everyone else on the team.”

Barber was a member of the 2002 NCAA Outdoor Championship team, and 1999 and 2002 SEC Outdoor Championship teams. She was a part of the 2002 NCAA Outdoor 4×400 championship team and a runner-up in the 400 meters at the 2002 championships. A 14-time All-American and six-time SEC champion, she is one of the most decorated athletes in South Carolina track and field history.

“Me’Lisa is one of the All-Americans here that helped us win a national championship,” Frye said. “She was a great student–someone who could match both things together–and had a deep desire to be an Olympian. She was as good as anybody in the short sprints in the country, but would always get a little injury so we moved her to the longer sprints to better her career.

“She had a mentality that more is better,” Frye recalled. “I would love to have 10 more athletes like her that want to line up and run just because of the joy of running.”

Cryer still owns the school’s indoor triple jump record at 52-5¼, while his outdoor triple jump mark ranks fifth. In the long jump, his outdoor mark ranks third all-time in school history, while his indoor mark is fourth. In 2006, he was a runner-up in the long jump at the SEC Indoor Championships.

“Greg came here as a South Carolina athlete who worked hard as a student, that was maybe a little underachieving at first because track wasn’t first for him; he was a basketball player,” Frye noted. “But with some coaching from Coach Dee [Quarles] and help from our academic people, he’s a role model of discovery that he could be as good of an athlete as a student. He went on to get his master’s degree at Tennessee and he’s now working in their academic services department.

“He’s someone who took his athletic talent to a very high level, but he was an outstanding student that pushed himself to greatness and he’s an example of what we want.”

Frye began holding the annual banquet when he first came to South Carolina to recognize the accomplishments of his current student-athletes, but also to bring alumni back to a place that they can still call home. It’s also a way for them to let the current student-athletes know about life after college, and as Frye puts it, “hopefully learn how some of the pressure from athletics can take you to the top of your field.”