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Coach J.J. Clark and his full-time staff once again have former world record-holding triple jumper Charlie Simpkins assisting their efforts and providing them an invaluable resource. A two-time Olympian and silver medalist in 1992, he will lend his knowledge and savvy to UT's jumps corps for the 10th consecutive season.
Simpkins' insights have been helpful in developing the Big Orange jumps group, which has included former American collegiate indoor long jump record-holder Tianna Madison, who won the IAAF World Outdoor Championship, NCAA and SEC Indoor and Outdoor titles and an NCAA Mideast Region outdoor crown, all in 2005, before she turned pro after her sophomore season. During her second campaign in Knoxville, Madison became only the second American woman (Jackie Joyner Kersee is the other) to strike long jump gold at Worlds and the third (JJK and Marion Jones did so) to medal in that event. Amazingly, Madison also was the first active Lady Vol track & field athlete to win at Worlds.
Among the plethora of awards Simpkins' tutelage helped Madison receive were Sports Illustrated On Campus magazine Women's Indoor Track & Field Athlete of the Year, SEC Indoor Women's Field Event Athlete of the Year and USTCA Mideast Region Women's Outdoor Athlete of the Year. Madison was also a finalist for the Honda Sports Award for Track & Field.
Along with former UT aide Caryl Smith Gilbert, Simpkins played a role in Madison's explosion to an American collegiate record-tying 22-3 at the NCAA undercover meet and 22-7.25 at the World Championships. Madison also had a barely-windy leap of 22-8.50 (2.2 mps) that was the longest women's mark ever recorded in the 25-year history of the event at the SEC Outdoor Championships.
In 2010, Vol long jumper Desmond Brown burst onto the conference scene, placing seventh indoors and rising to fifth outdoors with a career-best leap of 25-9 1/4. Lady Vol long jumper Kia Jackson also popped off a personal-record measurement of 19-8 to snare fifth at the SEC Indoor meet.
Edra Finley displayed remarkable improvement in 2005 under the watchful eye of Simpkins. As a sophomore in 2005, Finley moved herself to number two on UT's indoor triple jump list with a third-place leap of 41-8 at the SEC Indoor Championships. Outdoors, she ascended to third on the Lady Vol career charts with a mark of 40-9.75 and was on her way to more before an injury brought her campaign to a halt prior to the SEC meet.
Celriece Law and Lynne Layne are two recent UT athletes to benefit from Simpkins' advice. As a redshirt freshman in 2006, Law moved past Finley to number two on UT's indoor and outdoor all-time triple jump performers lists and scored in that event from 2006-09 at the SEC Indoor and Outdoor Championships.
Law also scored in the long jump at the conference level for the first time in her collegiate career, taking third at the 2007 SEC Outdoor meet, while teammate Layne was sixth. Layne followed that up by taking sixth in 2008, at both the league indoor and outdoor competitions, and eighth in 2009 at SEC Indoors.
A native of Aiken, S.C., Simpkins enjoyed a stellar post-collegiate career from 1985-95, participating in every national and international competition imaginable. In five of those seasons, he finished the year ranked among the top five in the world in the triple jump. The pinnacle, of course, was his jump of 57-9 that enabled him to earn runner-up status at the 1992 Olympic Games.
With a career best of 58-7 1/4, Simpkins has been ranked among the 10 all-time best triple jumpers in the world, according to Track & Field News. That fact is amazing, considering he didn't go out for track until he was a junior in high school. What's more, he accepted a basketball scholarship to tiny Baptist College (now Charleston Southern) before later turning his focus to track & field. That move proved to be a wise one, as he would earn All-America honors three times en route to becoming a 58-7 1/4 triple jumper, a 25-foot long jumper and a 7-2 high jumper.
The recipient of a sociology degree from Baptist, it is his minor in exercise science that has been most useful of late. In addition to his duties with UT, the ACE-certified Simpkins manages Zwick Fitness Center, a corporate facility where he works as a personal trainer and specializes in biomechanics for athletes. He also serves as field events coach for the Knoxville Track Club, where he has been involved for nine years.
