The University of Georgia’s new track is as spectacular as some of the athletes who cast their lot with the Bulldogs to have the best opportunity to train to become world-class performers.
It takes a state-of-the-art facility like the UGA Track and Field Complex to attract elite performers, and the Bulldogs, under Caryl Smith Gilbert, the first African American female head coach on campus, will recruit athletes who will bring high honor and national championship trophies to South Campus.
With UGA being a land-grant institution, this means that when the educational process began in 1785, there was plenty of land available for such schools, mainly because of the agricultural influence—the Morrill Act of 1862 designated 57 colleges as land-grant institutions, including Georgia.
Undeveloped land that lay fallow for decades reflects that the UGA track facility comprises 37.24 acres, the biggest of any university’s track facility in the country. This means there is ample land for Phase II, allowing UGA to eventually add an indoor facility, too.
For example, Oregon, a track-and-field program pacesetter, has a track layout that comprises 18.17 acres. UCLA’s track facility comprises 11.71 acres, and the track layout at the University of Southern California has a layout of only 4.92 acres.
Texas and California are where you find the greatest number of high school track athletes, with Georgia ranked fourth behind those two states and Florida. Still, the East Coast is where you find some of the best track-and-field talent in the world.
It doesn’t matter where the talent is; the UGA track program appeals to talent from all borders. Smith Gilbert, coach of both the men’s and women’s teams, has already demonstrated that she not only can coach world-class athletes but also can sell them on Athens and UGA.
The Georgia women won the national outdoor championship last June, a red-letter day for UGA, and spirits are boosted when you realize that in the coming years, Georgia often will be the team to beat in national competition.
This facility will also be a boon to the sport of track in the state of Georgia. High school athletes will want to come for track meets, and many will no doubt choose to enroll at UGA to further both their educational and athletic careers.
In its setting, you get a great sense not only of a top-notch training facility but also of the most uplifting outdoor atmosphere. Run with the wind, listen to the birds’ chirrup, no smokestacks within 50 miles — this facility is first class throughout and emotionally uplifting in every aspect.
It was also good to see the naming of the old track for Spec Towns, Georgia’s 1936 Olympic High Hurdles champion, carried forward to the new track.
Spec’s story will never not resonate. He was born with the perfect physical makeup for the high hurdles. An Augusta sportswriter lived next door to the Towns family and looked out a window at his home one day, where he saw Spec’s father and an uncle with a fishing pole resting on the top of their heads. The younger Towns soon leaped over the pole, prompting the sportswriter to call the University of Georgia and inform them they should call on this young athlete, post haste.
Spec was recruited to play football and distinguished himself in this rugged sport because his speed made him a valuable defensive player. He didn’t worry about getting hurt or finding a negative to carp about — he was getting a free education to play a sport.
But Weems Baskin, the UGA track coach, recognized how great a talent Towns was; plus, he had form, speed, and intense competitive fire. Spec never lost in a dual meet because he was just too good. A fierce competitor who practiced with the greatest diligence, he became an expert at the hurdles by placing a book of matches upright and learned to knock them over without ever hitting the hurdle.
The first man to run the 110-yard-high hurdles in less than 14 seconds, following World War II, Spec Towns became Georgia’s track coach until retirement.