Jan. 18, 2006

Columbia, SC – If Curtis Frye is smiling a bit this week, don’t mind him. In his 10th year at the Gamecock track and field helm, Trackwire.com ranked both of his team’s in the top 20 in the first poll of the year. Calling it flattering, he hopes to see both teams finish in the NCAA Championship at least as high as they are ranked this week. Last season’s squad finished fifth on the women’s side and 19th on the men’s side.

Traveling to Gainesville Sat., Jan. 21 for the Florida Invitational, Coach Frye sat down earlier this week to talk about last weekend’s performance at Virginia Tech, what he looks for at Florida and why he has writes his schedule in such a matter during the indoor season.

Q: Last week you posted some fine times at Virginia Tech. Were you satisfied with your performances?

Frye: It was a good meet. We got to know what we didn’t know. For example: we got to know that some people are better than we expected this early and some people aren’t as good as we expected this time of year. We got great performances out of Amberly Nesbit and Chelsea Hamond, but we found out we have work to do in the mile relay. We found out we have work to do on the men’s side, but health will take care of that. We had a number of people dinged up. Chelsea did a good job, setting the facility in the long jump and then she finished third in the hurdles. Precious Akins got out of the van, ran up the hill, had one warm-up throw and then went out and PR’ed in the 20lb. weight. Looks like we might have our first 60 footer since Mamee Groves. She should score in the conference.

Greg Crier had a great meet last weekend. He is faster this year than he was last year, but he isn’t as fast as he wants to be though. The freshman Jonathon Hancock did a good job running the sprints as well.

Q: This week you go to Florida. What are you looking for this weekend?

Frye: This week is another test so we can see if we learned anything from last week. The University of Florida has a great program. On the men’s side, Florida State, Tennessee men, Miami – there will be about 12 teams all told. Florida State might be the 1st or 2nd ranked team in the country (they are ranked No. 2 this week by Trackwire.com – led by sprinter Walter Dix). On the women’s side Miami, Florida, Georgia Tech – all very good, top 10 teams. It will be a strong test, stronger than last week.

Q: You ran on a banked track last week at Virginia Tech and a flat track this week in Gainesville. Are there noticeable differences for the runners?

Frye: The conference meet will be held this year in Gainesville. It is the fastest flat track in America. We can run almost as fast there as on a banked track. You get some adjustments because it is flat and it’s more difficult to run on. I expect some improvement by some, but we are going to work hard this week. We need two weeks of good hard work at these meets and in practice. If we run too fast it won’t be because we tapered. It will be because we are fast. We don’t want them to run too fast this early. We want them to run fast, but without a taper or reducing the load. If you are running fast and you are tired because of the workload, it’s a gamble on getting hurt, but you have to take that gamble if you want to be good.

We have a good group of women’s hurdlers: the three freshmen are very talented and can do a lot of events: long jump, hurdles, etc. They will do the pentathlon indoors and run the open hurdles as well. They will do a lot of events at conference.

We want to get healthy and stay healthy on the men’s side. All our women, with the exception of Natasha Hastings, are healthy.

Q: Have you talked to your team about team goals indoors yet?

Frye: I’ve talked to them about individual goals, but we haven’t talked about team goals yet. When we get the numbers up in competition, we will then have some realistic chances and projections. I think we will be able to talk about team goals after we come back from the Armory meet in New York City (early February).

Q: How do you plan your schedule indoors?

Frye: We set our schedule up trying to get the better facilities within the closest proximity in the early meets and we feel like Florida and Virginia Tech were those two facilities. After that, we set up our schedule by where we can run the fastest times to qualify for the NCAA meet. And we also set up the schedule so we can recruit. That’s important, too. New York City – the Armory meet – between New York and Washington, D.C. – its such a large population. There are some excellent athletes, but they also have to have outstanding grades and SATs. We know they can compete. We have gotten some great student-athletes from that part of the country. It’s part of the reason we run Penn Relays.

We also travel to Arkansas because that is where the NCAA meet will be held every year and you want to be able to get a run in there. That is the best track in the country.

We hope the schedule lends itself to success and leads us to a championship. We try to divide our schedule up into a training schedule; a phase when we are in pre-championship and then a championship schedule that leads into the conference meet and then the NCAA Championship. We want to be the best.