C.J. Licata had two years of competing taken away from him. Now he’s getting them back. The graduate transfer for South Carolina track and field spent four years at Princeton where he not only earned All-Ivy League honors twice, but also took home First Team All-American honors as a senior and Second Team All-American honors as a junior. However, he missed out on two years of competition due to the COVID-19 pandemic as the Ivy League halted all competitions for two years, while an injury cost him part of another year.
“The Ivy League has a rule where you can’t be a graduate student and compete, so you have to do it in four years,” said Licata, who earned a degree in history from Princeton and is now working on his Master of Business Administration at South Carolina while competing in the shotput and discus. “I came into Princeton and broke my foot my freshman outdoor season, so I got a medical redshirt. The only way I could get an extra year of eligibility at Princeton was to take a year off from school. I came back my sophomore year and competed for the indoor season and then COVID (pandemic) hits. Boom. There goes another outdoor season. Then the next year, the Ivy League cancelled all sports again for the entire conference. So, last year I competed in my third indoor season and my first outdoor season. That’s four years, and one outdoor season, so to use my eligibility, I had to come somewhere else.
“It was frustrating seeing everyone else from other conferences competing.”
Licata never thought about leaving Princeton before he completed his undergraduate degree because he knew what it meant for his future to have a degree from the school, and he really enjoyed all the other aspects of campus life. Once completed, he said he was looking for a “powerhouse” place to compete and use his remaining eligibility with one indoor season and three outdoor seasons left. He had the opportunity to compete as an unattached athlete at one point at South Carolina, and that helped in his decision.
“I was looking for somewhere to train where there was great weather, great training partners, and access to a lot of resources that anybody would need to get to the next level,” Licata said. “I knew that (South Carolina assistant) coach (Mike) Sargent was one of the best in the game. It was pretty clear when I took my visit here that this was the place. I could go to the business school here too, which is also what I was looking for. (The)…