Author Archives: Ashley Usery

3rd Annual Track Social

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3rd Annual Team Social

Recently the track and field team had their 3rd annual team social. Three years ago Alishea Usery felt that the team felt too large and didn’t fully know one another so she asked Coach Holloway if the team could host an event that would make it possible for everyone on the team to meet and hang out. Coach Holloway told her if she came up with a good plan and put the event together that they could make it happen.

This year’s social was better than ever. Alishea put together a committee and ran the entire event. Along with the entire team they invited advisors, coaches, managers, alumni and anyone else associated with the team and their families to attend. This year, we had help from Zane Breakiron, javelin thrower, who DJ’ d the event for us and from Mike Burris, 400m sprinter, to Jayla Bostic and Hana Sladick, throwers, who took pictures.

Kaitlin Davis, Jayla Bostic and Hana Sladick pose for a picture.

Everyone on the team was divided up into four different groups for games and activities designated by the color on their nametags. The groups were mixed up so you were not on smaller teams with people you normally train with. That said it made everyone work with teammates they normally don’t associate with.

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Life as a Post-Grad

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What’s up Gator Nation? I’m back!

Well, the fall semester has finally begun and I feel like I am on the other side of the fence now. I am beginning the 5th year of my journey here at UF; and in my case, I do not have any more track and field athletic eligibility left. To be completely honest…I really don’t know how I feel about it right now. Part of me is a bit excited because my body can finally get a rest from all the work I put in for almost four and a half years. However, the other part of me is sad because track and field is all that I have known during my time here as a Gator. I’ve been on such a tight schedule these past few years that I have even had to pencil in a time to take a nap. These past couple of years my days have been on a minute-by-minute schedule. Before we switched weights to being in the afternoon my day would be: 5:15am wake up, weights at 5:45, 7:00 breakfast in the morning, 8:30 class, 10:40 class, 11:45 class, lunch, then off to practice at about 1:30 or 2:30, then off to dinner around 5:00 followed by tutoring at 6:30 in the evening.

This past year my days didn’t start as early, but they did end longer with weights being after practice, and thus, pushing everything back further. Either way the days would start running together and at some point I would forget the days of the week altogether. Even though I complained, this structure kept me busy. Throughout the years I would long for down time and try and plan my schedule around a nap; but when I actually got that down time I didn’t know what to do with myself.

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The Adventure in Africa, Part 2!

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I’m back with more about Gators in Africa.

Four days after our original arrival date, we finally landed in Africa and we all were very anxious so we rushed of the plane as fast as we could. The only way I can describe baggage claim is complete chaos. There were so many people everywhere. The males just told us to find a spot and stand by the bags as they handed them to us. We had kind of an assembly line going: a couple people grabbed the bags; another grouped the bags, while others counted the bags to make sure they were all there. Of course, with our luck, we were a bag short; Trey’s luggage and a cooler were missing. It didn’t even surprise us. I commend Trey, we get all the way on the other side of the world and his bag is missing, but you couldn’t tell he was upset, and if he was he sure didn’t show it. We were all just glad to finally get to our destination.

After waiting for about an hour, the missing luggage still wasn’t there, so we all had to gather everything to leave and head to the hotel. By the time we got there, it was night time so we grabbed dinner and called it a night.

The next morning it hit us, THE GATORS WERE IN AFRICA!!!!!!!

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The Adventure to Africa

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Hey Gator Nation,

It’s been a while since I’ve checked in with you guys. So far this summer has been kind of CRAZY, but in a good way, of course.

So after nationals I had about a week to finish up things with my summer class and finish preparing for my trip to Africa. Here’s a little background on how all of this got started.

An opportunity to take a mission trip with Athletes in Action (a group that provides spiritual guidance to collegiate athletes) was brought to the table at the beginning of the spring semester. During one of our bible study sessions our on campus leader, Kevin Sides, mentioned it. The more he talked about the trip the more I became interested, and thus, signed up for the trip and immediately began fundraising. I learned that while in Africa we would be conducting a series of sports camps for some of their athletes (in our respected disciplines).
Along with myself and six other athletes: Alishea Usery, Ashley Miller, Trey and Clay Burton, Patric Young and Will Yeguete; we became the dynamic seven, (along with former Gator Great Mike Cotton who is a former USA Pole Vault champion and Scott Flemmings, a Basketball coach from Dallas, Texas).

I can’t even find a single word to describe how excited and determined we were to make this trip.

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Traveling in Style

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Traveling is different with every team. Some have to dress up, some of us have matching team attire we’re supposed to wear, others may travel charter, bus to events and the rest of us may fly commercial…it just all depends. For track and field we all take full advantage of the opportunity to get out on the road with the team. As time gets near for us to start traveling, our anticipation builds. The fall training season is so long and we are just antsy to get on the road and finally compete.

Alishea Usery and Darshay Davis sitting together on the bus

To make sure we are on track academically, we work hand-in-hand with our advisors to take some of our harder classes in the fall (when we are not competing) so that our school work will be the least demanding as possible during season. Once you start to get far in your major, it’s kind of hard to manage your schedule that way.

Once the season starts in the spring, our schedules get very demanding as we start traveling pretty much every week. You can only image how our professors feel about that. But thanks go to our lovely advisors—they send out a letter at the beginning of the semester and let our professors know ahead of time all the days we will be missing. While everybody is juggling work on the road, we are in tutoring all night trying to get as much work as possible done so we can make the best of our “business trip”. So… the operation before we start traveling is get as much work done as possible and pack before the last minute.

With track and field, we travel in all black. We wear a black Nike Polo shirt, with black pants and the matching jacket that is issued to us so that we are all uniform. We fly mostly commercial, which can be pretty fun. There have been so many people in the airports ask us if we are we the basketball team. At times I really wonder what is going through their heads. I am 5’2 and no part of me looks like I could play basketball at the college level. Others have asked if we were a co-ed basketball team and someone even asked one time if we were ninjas. Maybe it was the black, I’m not sure.

Ebony Eutsey and Omar Craddock on the plane

When we travel we are usually gone anywhere from 3 to 10 days maximum, so when we are gone we have to find a way to keep ourselves occupied during the days we don’t compete. Personally, I like to bring my Wii or Kinect to play the Michael Jackson or Kinect sports games.

As a final note, I’d like to wish our Baseball team the best of luck at the College World Series in Omaha and good luck to the Gators competing at the USA Swimming Olympic Trials which are also in Omaha! Go Gators!