Community Plays Big Role in Success of Hosting SEC Championships

April 9, 2018

South Carolina equestrian has a trophy case full of national championship and SEC championship hardware, and now the Gamecocks are receiving high marks after recently hosting the SEC Championships at One Wood Farm on March 30-31.

“We definitely try to give it a championship look and feel,” said Chuck Dunlap, SEC Director of Communications. “We want to give the student-athletes something they will always remember. Outside of the national championship, we want this to be the best experience that they have. The visuals were great. You stepped on site and it had a championship feel in every way, with all the flowers that South Carolina had at the different arenas, and instead of one scoreboard at the middle of the campus there, we had different scoreboards and different P.A.s and music at each one. South Carolina really went above and beyond in establishing the facility for the championship.”

“We did everything in our power to make it run on time, and it did,” said South Carolina head coach Boo Major. “I think it was a great success.”

Major said that there is definitely a commitment to enhancing the championship experience for the sport.

“I think there is a challenge between the schools,” Major said. “The SEC is certainly behind us all the way, and within the schools, we want the student-athletes to have a great experience. I think we challenge ourselves within the schools to make it better each year, and each year it seems to be that way.”

Megan Kennington, South Carolina Athletics Director of Operations, Event Management and Sports Camps, noted that community involvement was a huge factor in the event’s success.

“The town of Blythewood provided us a lot of support,” Kennington said. “They provided a monetary donation that we put toward our video boards. We had to rent three of them. They were great community partners for us. They were really interested in providing a good experience for any of the visitors.”

We added a lot of personal touches and necessities that made it more special.

Coach Boo Major

In addition to a hard-working staff, which included Assistant Director of Athletics Communications and Public Relations Rob Walden and Assistant Director of Marketing Joe O’Clair, Kennington said one of the keys to the success of hosting the event was from the great support of volunteers from the University and the community.

“The volunteer piece was huge,” Kennington said. “It was nice to be able to come to the farm and know that those jobs were covered. It was community members, Gamecock Club members, kids on spring break, we had older folks, and we had everybody in between. We had some folks run scoresheets from the ring to Rob Walden in Athletics Communications so he could verify the scores. We had people doing the timing, the manual scoreboards, and we had people doing set-ups if anything needed to be moved or raked or whatever was needed in the ring. Other folks were running the hospitality shuttle and a handicapped shuttle.”

“Having young adults and kids there was fun to see, and it was fun to educate them about what we do,” Major added. “The volunteers were fantastic in doing a lot of things that the student-athletes do during a normal meet. It really took a burden off our student-athletes so they could do what they needed to do and have some downtime.”

Many of the volunteers from the community came on board after requests were posted on the team’s social media accounts.

“We knew there were a lot of people invested in the program, so we thought they might be willing to donate their time and help us,” Kennington said. “The goal was to get some horse-knowledgeable people. We ended up getting about 50 people who were indeed knowledgeable about horses. Some were former jumpers and riders, and some people owned horses. They had an understanding of what they were watching and what was going on.”

Former Gamecock Bailey Mierzejewski coordinated the volunteers.

South Carolina wasn’t going into the event blind as the Gamecocks had also hosted the event four years ago, so planning began last August. One of the biggest challenges is making room for all the horses. For a regular competition, both teams use the home team’s horses, but for the SEC Championships, each team brings their horses to be used throughout the competition.

“Each team brought 12 horses, so that’s an extra 36 horses on the property,” Kennington said. “Our whole parking lot that we normally have was dedicated as space to put the horses. We rented temporary stables and put those up. No other sports equipment is living and breathing like you have with equestrian, so that’s what makes this so different.”

“This is different than other sports because you are dealing with live animals,” Major said. “It’s a big juggling act to make everything fit. We had the basics four years ago, and the schools add something else every year. We added a lot of personal touches and necessities that made it more special. The farm looked beautiful. We had three competition areas this time, whereas the last time, we only had two. There was green grass and mulching. There was a lot of extra stuff.”

While South Carolina had hosted the event four years ago, each year the host school learns from the previous host and finds ways to make the event a grander championship experience for the student-athletes and spectators.

“Going in to this year, Boo and her crew had been to so many different places, so they knew what the latest `keeping up with the Joneses’ needed to be,” Kennington said. “We had a fan shuttle this time, and Larry Sharp let us borrow some land by I-77 so we had areas to park. Concessions did really well. Knowing what we had done last time, really helped this time going in.”

“It’s important for the student-athletes to have a first-class experience, and a nice stage to perform on for a couple of days,” Dunlap said. “It had a great look and visual for fans and teams from where they entered the facility, the main walkway for the fans, and from one ring to the next. It definitely felt like a championship.”