'I'm unforgiving': UT track and field coach Duane Ross won't settle for less than complete dominance

The first thing Duane Ross did when he found himself at Tom Black Track once again was walk over to lane four.

It was the exact lane in which the new Tennessee track and field coach had won an NCAA championship in the 110-meter hurdles in 1995. 

"I just walked it straight and, you know, it felt good," Ross said. "I will tell you when this opportunity arrived and I had a conversation with (athletic director) Danny (White), I gotta tell you, my mind was made up within the first 10 minutes."

Ross  had his first team meeting Monday  with Tennessee track and field, only 36 hours after the outdoor season ended in Eugene, Oregon. Ross was keeping an eye on his future team at the NCAA Championships over the weekend, and when he met with them in Knoxville, he had a simple message.

"This is not about trying to win a national title next year," Ross said. "This is about earning a national title every year after. I mean, complete dominance. I'm unforgiving. I don't mind saying, 'I want to be the best.' That's why we do this."

Ross, who spent the last 10 years coaching at North Carolina A&T, inherits a program that saw the men's team place third at the outdoor NCAA Championships,  its highest finish since 2002. Ross said it was difficult to walk away from the program he built, but he hopes he left a great legacy behind for HBCUs.

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"It was about saying 'Hey, we can be the best despite what people are saying,' " Ross said. "It was always the same thing every year: You don't have the resources, you can't do this, you can't do that. The very first meeting I had at North Carolina A&T with some of our alumni, a man told me I was too ambitious, that I couldn't win nationals.

"But our naysayers, they haven't learned yet that all that does is give me more power. It just gives me more focus."

Ross said he knew during his first conversation with White that the he was invested in Ross' success as a coach, and it was eye opening.

"Danny made a statement to me when I initially met him that pretty much just sold it," Ross said. "I mean, we spent hours together, but he could have led with that one statement and we could have avoided all that talk. He said 'We got your back.' And that was huge."

White also introduced a new model for Tennessee's track and field and cross country programs. Previously, one coach led all six programs, but White is changing that with the hire of cross country coach Sean Carlson.

Carlson spent the last 10 years with Notre Dame, where he built the program into one of the nation's best. Besides winning two ACC Coach of the Year awards, Carlson guided athletes to four American collegiate records, 13 school records, 29 NCAA All-America performances, two NCAA records and three NCAA championships.

"Giving coach Ross and myself the resources and ability to pay attention to what we're supposed to do, it just hasn't happened in the sport yet," Carlson said. "That was one of the biggest things that attracted me was (White's) vision for what we're going to do here and kind of changing the landscape of the NCAA."