University of Tennessee Athletics
Watts Named South Region Coach of the Year
November 26, 2002 | Cross Country
Nov. 26, 2002
Tennessee head cross country coach George Watts was named South Region Coach of the Year for piloting the Vols to the region championship. Based on a vote of his South Region coaching peers, Watts earned the honor for the second consecutive year after leading his underdog Vols to the NCAA Championships again. The honor marks Watts' third such honor in his tenure as head cross country coach, as he also won District 3 Coach of the Year honors in 1995.
Watts was presented the honor at the recent U.S. Cross Country Coaches Association banquet held in conjunction with the NCAA Championships in Terre Haute, Ind.
Watts and his Volunteers, ranked fourth in the South Region, shocked the cross country world by not only qualifying for the NCAA Championships, but winning the NCAA South Regional Championships by defeating a field of 18 and heavily favored Alabama. At the South Regionals, Tennessee posted a 51-point score, 28 points ahead of the Tide. Watts' Vols followed the race plan at cold and soggy Lambert Acres Golf Club in Maryville to the tune of six All-Region honors, meaning that the final Vol to make All-Region didn't even count toward the team score.
Because of the South Region effort, Tennessee qualified for the NCAA Championships as a team in consecutive years for the first time since 1994-95 and first time in the Watts era (1995-present), as another former Vol distance star named Doug Brown coached the Vols in 1994.
Tennessee ended up on top of the victory stand three times in 2002. Besides defeating the 18-team field at the South Regionals, the Volunteers bested a seven-team field at the Tennessee Invitational and a 13-team field at the Furman Invitational. The last time Tennessee won three meets in a season came in 1999.
The NCAA Championships arrived Monday, and Tennessee's 31st-place finish wasn't exactly what the Vols were hoping for. However, Watts and his charges assembled a solid season in retrospect. Now, the Tennessee distance corps takes some time off before indoor track gets cranked up in earnest in January.
Watts' influence has proven valuable on the track, as well. Watts, an All-America and multiple SEC champion runner from the late 1970s, helped guide Tennessee to three of its track titles in 1991, 2001 and 2002.
