By Riley Zayas
One of the newest faces on campus this fall is new track and field head coach Edrick Floréal, who took over the job in June. He might be new on the forty acres, but he is not at all new to the sport of track.
Floréal got his start in head coaching at Stanford, where he first held the position of director for the track and field program and later the head coaching job, earning West Regional Coach of the Year for the 2010 indoor season. Following a 14-year stay in Palo Alto, Floréal[s2If current_user_can(access_s2member_level2)] took Kentucky’s head coach position and led both the men’s and women’s teams to numerous titles.
“(Floréal) took a program that had never had a track and field history and took on that challenge and then he took Kentucky to a place of national prominence,” Texas athletic director Chris Del Conte said.
Before he arrived, the women’s team had never finished in the top four at the NCAA outdoor championships until he brought the team to a program-best third-place finish in 2018. The men’s team also did very well during Floréal’s tenure, finishing the season ranked 22nd or better six times, and landing five of his athletes on the All-Southeastern Conference team this season.
The Haitian-born triple jumper competed in the college ranks at SEC powerhouse Arkansas, where he was a five-time national champion in the triple jump and helped the Razorbacks to four NCAA team championships. Internationally, he competed for Team Canada in two consecutive Olympics, winning bronze at the 1990 Commonwealth Games and currently holds the Canadian record in the long jump and triple jump, records that have stood for more than 20 years.
“Edrick Floréal is the perfect person to lead our track and field program,” Del Conte said. “We firmly believe that in short order, we will be winning national championships again.”
In his first season at Texas, Floréal will try to return Texas to national prominence once again, as he did at Stanford and most recently Kentucky, and his efforts will be boosted by the presence of several elite athletes. Senior hurdler John Burt has reached the NCAA Outdoor Championships in each of his three seasons at UT, thrower Tripp Piperi won silver in the shot put at this year’s IAAF world U20 championships and Sam Worley was named Big 12 Freshman of the Year, and will all be major contributors to the team this season.
“This is an opportunity,” Floréal said. “This is a place where I can build my legacy. This is a place that has all the elements for success. I want to give the student-athletes an experience where they can go back years from now and say, ‘This was the best experience of my life.’”
Floréal has a history of taking teams to the top and if his intent is to mirror that success in his first year in Austin, he will have to do so under the pressure of intense scrutiny, which only will be increased with UT hosting the the 2019 and 2020 NCAA Outdoor track and field championships.
“Yes, the pressure is on,” Floréal said. “We can’t host and do poorly. I must make sure that this very first time we host, that we quickly turn it around. I am just thankful Texas saw me as a fit, and I’m looking forward to going to work.”
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