Curtis Frye has seen almost everything in his career as a track and field coach. After leading South Carolina’s program for the last 27 years, he felt that the time was right to have someone else take the baton and smiles greatly about his career.
“Twenty-seven years is a lot of fun, but you can only have so much fun,” Frye said. “I wish everybody could be like me. I’ve enjoyed it.
“Track and field was diverse. Love is what my family was. We raised a neighborhood and track and field is a neighborhood. Big guys throw shot put. Tall guys high jump. Skinny guys run the distance. It’s straight, gay, it’s African, it’s Moroccan, it’s Kenyan, Irish, it’s everything. When you coach track, you coach people. All people. Emotional people. Depressed people. Sad people. Excited people. What I like about it is that it’s so much like life. You can’t lock yourself in a gated community in track and field. You gotta learn how to adapt and deal with the whole world.”
Frye’s career with the Gamecocks was spectacular, highlighted by bringing South Carolina its first team NCAA Championship in any sport when his women’s squad captured the 2002 NCAA Outdoor title. During his tenure, Frye coached or oversaw 28 Olympians who have garnered 14 Olympic medals, 60 NCAA Champions, 126 SEC Champions, more than 500 NCAA All-Americans and 21 Academic All-Americans. He coached 14 SEC Athletes of the Year and five National Athletes of the Year. Prior to South Carolina he enjoyed stints as an assistant coach at East Carolina, North Carolina State, Florida, and North Carolina.
While he still loved what he was doing, seeing the program dip a little below his usual high standards of success became a factor.
“Not being at the level I liked being at, that became one of the giants in the room,” Frye said and then pondered further. “Recruiting. Not being able to land the five stars. That’s what you have to have, and you have a number of them in this league. I just felt it was time for a change because with Carolina, we built it to the point that it was a five-star (program). It’s been three years since we’ve been able to be a top-fifteen. I expect to be contending, or have a contender, or have an Olympian from the day I first got started. It was very hard.
“We had a couple of wins this year in the mile, but we didn’t have a sprint champion. We have some kids that are going to the American Championship, but it’s just not the same as being one…