On Sunday, following The Park Church of Christ’s “Achieving New Heights” sermon by Mitch Wilburn, Brandon and I grabbed a quick lunch, loaded up the poles and headed to Fayetteville, Arkansas.
We arrived at Fayetteville High School’s vault facility and spent the afternoon vaulting with fellow vaulter and friend, Ryan Roark. On hand at the practice was 2008 Olympian April Steiner Bennett and Fayetteville HS coach and previous Abilene Christian star decathlete and vaulter, Greg Culp. During the vault session, Brandon easily cleared 15′ and had some really good attempts at 16′
After the practice we drove to the hotel that the University of Arkansas had reserved for us, cleaned up, and later met Arkansas Assistant Track Coach Mario Sategna in the lobby. He took us to dinner at a nearby BBQ restaurant where we spent time learning about each other. It was a good evening and we enjoyed visiting with Coach Sategna.
The next morning we met in the hotel lobby again with Coach Sategna, and also Arkansas Head Track Coach Chris Bucknam, and Director of Operations Matt Downs. We sat down for breakfast and visited more about the Arkansas program. After a great visit, we followed them to the UofA campus and Matt began showing us around the campus.
The Jerry Jones Family Athlete Success Center, located near the track and football stadium is a fantastic new addition to the athletic facilities. It is designed to address the academic, nutritional, personal and professional development for all UofA athletes.
It contains a dining hall with full-service kitchen and provides breakfast and lunch meals to all athletes free of charge and dinner can be purchased using any of the universities meal plans. Also in this building are offices for academic support staff and study/tutor rooms.
Coaches Sategna and Bucknam, and Associate Head Coach Doug Case met us in the cafeteria for lunch where we continued our discussions about the UofA Track program. After visiting for a while, we continued the tour around campus with Matt where we were able to see the outside of the dorms, classrooms, and made a stop inside the Bud Walton Arena where basketball games are held. The lobby contains a trophy and awards area where the amazing history of Arkansas track is displayed.
We skipped the indoor track since we saw that during the indoor season, so we then joined Coach Sategna at the outdoor track to observe a practice where he was working with the decathletes at the shot ring. What an amazing facility!
And as nice as it is, they are preparing to improve it further. They are planning to build a new building at the south end to provide new locker rooms, training facilities, and coaches offices. We took a few minutes to walk around the track during practice and observe other athletes. We met the women’s renowned vault coach, Bryan Compton, and also two very famous Arkansas women vaulters, Olympic silver medalist Sandi Morris and Olympian Lexi Weeks.
We then said our goodbyes to Coach Sategna and returned home to Broken Arrow. It was a fantastic experience and Arkansas Track is tops in the country. Such a successful program. Brandon is definitely interested in UofA as one of his top choices.