Mouse roars again: UF coach Mike Holloway’s Gators win sixth men’s NCAA track title
Florida coach Mike “Mouse” Holloway’s timing was perfect once again as his Gators peaked at the right time to deliver another national title.
The latest men’s outdoor track and field championship — the program’s second straight and sixth overall — came on the heels of a lackluster sixth-place showing during the SEC Championships May 11-13.
A year after the men’s first national title since 2017, the Gators did not seem destined for another one this season. Instead, they found the winning formula for perhaps the most dramatic title run under Holloway.
Florida celebrates after winning the men’s NCAA outdoor track and field title June 9, 2023, in Austin, Texas. (Sara Diggins/Austin American-Statesman via AP)
UF captured the 4 x 400-meter relay Friday night in Austin, Texas, to edge Arkansas 57-53 in the final tally after the Razorbacks stumbled to an eighth-place finish during the final event.
“It is an incredible feeling,” Holloway told The Associated Press. “I get asked all the time what my favorite championship is and I jokingly but not jokingly say the next one. There are different people, different experiences, different emotions involved.
“We had new athletes who had never done it before.”
The women’s team looks to join the men Saturday as in 2022 when the Gators swept both meets. Florida begins the day in third place.
The Gators men won the 4 X 400 with 2 minutes, 57.74 seconds to edge Arizona State. Ryan Willie anchored Florida’s winning effort after the Baltimore native finished second by hundredth of a second to teammate Emmanuel Bamidele in the 400. Bamidele clocked in at 44.24, the fastest time in the country this year and second fastest in school history, while Willie’s time of 44.25 was the second fastest time in 2023. Those finishes along with a seventh by Jacory Patterson earned UF 20 points in the single event.
Willie ran the first leg for the second-place 4 X 100 team to first get the Gators on the scoreboard. Jacory Patterson, Pjai Austin and Robert Gregory followed Willie’s lead to post a time of 38.26.
Gregory finished fourth in the 200 with a personal-best time of 19.89 and Sean Dixon-Bodie was fourth in the triple jump (54-6) as each earned 5 points to help position the Gators for their final-event heroics.
Florida coach Mike Holloway rejoices after his men’s team won the 2022 NCAA outdoor track & field championships in Eugene, Ore. (Steph Chambers / Getty Images)
The national title was Florida’s 13th national team title under Holloway, a former Gators assistant coach who came to UF in 1995 after coaching at Gainesville’s Buchholz High School. The school named the track after him in April.
Last August, the 63-year-old agreed to a contract extension keeping the city’s native son at UF through the 2032 season.
Edgar Thompson can be reached at egthompson@orlandosentinel.com. Follow him on Twitter at @osgators.
