JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – In the back corner of a Ruby Tuesday in Johnson City, Tenn., Ron Grigg addressed his team. It was February of 2006, and the ASUN Conference was putting on its first ever Indoor Track & Field Championship at the Mini Dome on the campus of East Tennessee State University that week. Grigg wanted to lay out the path to a championship for his team, so he whipped out the stat sheet and explained exactly what the points looked like and what they needed to do the following day. After day one, the Jacksonville University women’s track and field team was in first place. That is a phrase that has become synonymous over the years with the championship-level program.

Since going on to win that inaugural indoor championship in 2006, the team has captured 23 total ASUN Conference track titles, one cross country championship and in the last two decades has sent 20 different athletes to the NCAA Championships in eight events. In the last 20 years, few teams in any sport can claim the dominance like that of which we have seen from the track and field program at Jacksonville University. 

Grigg is the architect of the program, building it from the ground up when he returned to JU in 2002 to take over as the head coach after a previous, brief stint as an assistant in 1998. He has had a chance to reflect on the program’s incredible success recently thanks to the ASUN Conference putting out its All-Decade teams for both of the century’s first two decades. The teams were understandably loaded with Dolphins, reflecting the amount of individual talent over the years that has fueled the program’s rise and sustained consistency.

ASUN Conference Women's Track and Field All-Decade Team 2001-10

ASUN Conference Women's Track and Field All-Decade Team 2011-20

“The ceiling is always the ceiling, we always want to be as good as we can be,” says Grigg about the program. “What we’ve been able to do is continually raise the floor, so the minimum expectations continue to rise,”

While seemingly inconsequential at first glance, that one season in 1998 that Grigg worked at JU as an assistant opened the door for him to come back and build the program. Part of that was due to how he already understood the potential for the school, and also what limitations existed and how to navigate them.

Grigg had prior coaching experience at the Division III level and at a Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference school, another mid-major Division I conference, prior to joining the staff at Jacksonville to coach sprints, jumps and hurdles in 1998. He then spent two years at Kansas State, helping the Wildcats to a Big 12 Conference title for the first time in school history and tutoring the likes of Terance Newman, who set several school records as a sprinter while also excelling on the football team, eventually being drafted fifth overall by the Dallas Cowboys in 2003 and enjoying a 15-year NFL career.

This combination of experience at different levels gave Grigg a unique perspective when he came back to the oak-shrouded Arlington campus in 2002. The track was built just five years prior, and Grigg was selling potential and hope as much as anything in the early years. His message landed in his very first recruiting class, when he convinced Monique Tubbs, Andrea Pressley and Safiya Davy to take a leap of faith with the unknown coach and program. All three made the ASUN’s All-Decade Team list.

“There was nobody for Monique or Andrea or Safiya to train with when they signed with me. There was no history of success. There was what I had done at previous institutions, but they came because of what the university was offering. They blazed the trail. The legacy they have left allowed for recruiting to become easier, because it didn’t just happen once, it happened repeatedly.”

It was not just prized recruits like Tubbs that made the program what it was, but also those such as Danielle Davenport, a walk-on, who went on to excel in the 400m, still holding the school record. 

The individual success of many of the versatile, multi-event athletes that Grigg recruited to build the team in the early years had not gone unnoticed, and the classes he brought in quickly became deeper, while remaining immensely talented. By then, the culture had been put into place.

Following Tubbs and Davenport, more great athletes like Hilary Crook, a five-time gold medal winner in the Shot Put at the ASUN Championships, and Ronnisha Hall, a Hammer Throw and Shot Put champ, came to JU as part of the well-rounded squads that set the table for the next decade of excellence. From 2011 to 2019, JU won 13 more ASUN Championships, led by the continued growth of the athletes in the program, with 14 of them recognized on the second ASUN All-Decade Team of the century. Today, Grigg uses the plethora of individual successes to motivate his team.

“I was telling our current team, ‘the reason this group of student-athletes have become ASUN legends is because they didn’t aspire to be just ASUN good’, which means that there are levels above that. If you are regionally and nationally good, then you are likely going to be legendary in the ASUN”

All of the trophies, medals and All-Americans came after Grigg spent those valuable years as an assistant at Kansas State, where he learned how to run a program, utilize scholarships to maximize potential and to instill an Olympic-level atmosphere. He credits his success and longevity to his adaptability over the years, as his championship tenure has spanned six athletic directors and three university presidents. 

“I’m proud that, as administrations have changed, they’ve recognized the excellence, which has allowed me to stay. I have a lot of coaching friends, and not many of them can say they’ve been coaching in the same place for 20 years. From being the young, punk, maybe complainer as an assistant coach in the late 90s, to having real relationships with professors and administrators today.”

Go back even further, and you find the basis of his coaching philosophy. He started his post-college career with Teach For America in a second grade classroom in Baltimore, Md.

“I coach with the heart of a teacher. Being able to provide opportunity and using track and field as a way to understand personal excellence and to be able to take those things from the track and apply them other places: in the classroom, in your personal life. I aspire for that to be what our student-athletes remember.”

Grigg still values the relationships he built over the years more than any of the other accolades. This was displayed perfectly after the ASUN released its two All-Decade Teams when he created a group chat with all 25 former Dolphin athletes recognized on the two lists. 

“I have a smile on my face from the text messages that went on that whole day,” he said. “Just the memories and the jokes.”

As another decade starts, with that comes the opportunity for more success and memories for the next generation of track and field athletes at JU. Regardless of what is won, Grigg still focuses on much more than results.

“I’m hoping that it is not just about how fast you ran, I’m hoping it is about the relationships you built and the lessons that you learned, while reaping the rewards of being successful.