By John Frierson
Staff Writer

One thing that can be said about Caryl Smith Gilbert, Georgia’s Director of Track & Field for the men’s and women’s programs, is that she knows how to win. Before coming to Athens, she led USC’s women to NCAA Outdoor Championships in 2018 and 2021. And in June, she guided the Georgia women to the program’s first NCAA Outdoor title. 

Smith Gilbert’s teams win a lot, as do her runners, jumpers and throwers individually, but she spends a lot of time talking about failure. It’s not a word she’s hesitant to use about her own track career at UCLA, or when talking to current Bulldogs or recruits.

“I think I get through to the student-athletes better by not having some kind of rosy Olympic gold medal story,” Smith Gilbert said. “What are you going to do now when it doesn’t work out? Whatever it is — could be a workout and you didn’t hit the (time) split. Could be a meet you didn’t win. What are you going to do?”

And that is at the heart of what Smith Gilbert is trying to convey when she talks about failure. How are her student-athletes going to respond when they inevitably come up short? Michael Jordan was infamously cut from the varsity basketball team as a sophomore in high school, and then went on to be an all-time great. Usain Bolt lost a lot of races before becoming the fastest human in history. Sprinter Allison Felix won silver medals in the 200 meters at the 2004 and ’08 Olympics, before capturing the gold in 2012.

“You have to be resilient,” said Smith Gilbert, a three-time national Coach of the Year. “I’ve never seen an Olympic gold medalist who didn’t fail at some point.”

Smith Gilbert arrived at UCLA in the late 1980s as one of the top sprinters in the country, and she was determined to win an Olympic gold medal one day. While that dream didn’t come true — she has described it as “a failed track career” — she was still a three-time All-American and Pac-10 champion in the 100 meters, 4×100 and 4×400 relays.

Calling that a “failed” career may seem harsh, but it provides a powerful lesson for Smith Gilbert to pass along to her student-athletes.

“I’m not the coach who said I made every class or every practice, or that I hit all my reps and got a gold medal. I’m not that,” she said. “I’m you who is struggling today, and I had to go figure it out.”

Smith Gilbert never planned on getting into coaching. She majored in Film and Television Production at UCLA, and thought her future was in Hollywood or somewhere else in the industry. After graduating, her old high school coach in Denver got her to come back to coach. She planned on it being a short-term thing, something she’d do before returning to Los Angeles. But life doesn’t always go according to plan.

“I fought it at first, I didn’t want to do it … but I realized somewhere in there that this is what made me happy, helping other people,” she said.

After multiple collegiate coaching stops, she did eventually return to L.A., first as USC’s women’s head coach from 2008-13 and then as the Trojans’ Director of Track and Field for the men’s and women’s programs. Smith Gilbert took the Georgia job in 2021, right after leading USC’s women to a second NCAA Outdoor title. 

Next month, she will serve as the head coach of the U.S. women’s team at the World Athletics Championships. It’s an honor well earned for a coach who has had success everywhere she’s been.

“I think it’s important,” Smith Gilbert said. “I think every coach at some point in their career should try to do it, because it shows that you respect the sport, you’re respected by the sport, and you represent your country.”

Between competing and coaching, Smith Gilbert has seen a lot of the world through track and field, with trips to Costa Rica, Finland, Japan, and more. She doesn’t take all of these opportunities for granted.

“I’m honored, I’m amazed, and I’m so humbled by the sport,” she said. “And I respect the sport so much. … My whole life is based on a sport because I could run fast.”

Run fast, yes, but she also put in the work, on and off the track, both as a sprinter and then as a coach. Along with her degree from UCLA, she has two master’s degrees from Tennessee, earned while she was an assistant coach with the Vols.

One of the most valuable lessons Smith Gilbert has learned, and one of the lessons she passes along to her team, is that failure is part of life. Whether you’re a world-class sprinter or a doctor or everything in between, there will be bad days and disappointments. What Smith Gilbert is passionate about is making sure her Bulldogs respond to failure in the most productive and healthy ways possible.

Georgia sprinter Aaliyah Butler is a prime example. At the 2024 NCAA Outdoor Championships at Oregon’s Hayward Field, Butler placed 14th in the 400-meter semifinals with a time of 51.64 and failed to reach the final. About a month later, on that same track, Butler ran a 49.71 to place second at the U.S. Olympic Team Trials, earning her a ticket to Paris. At the Olympics, she earned a gold medal as part of the 4×400 relay team.

Butler got more redemption in June, when she won the 400 at the NCAA Outdoors and anchored Georgia’s winning 4×400 relay win to close out the program’s national championship. She was the recipient of the Honda Sport Award for track and field, which is given to the female student-athlete in each NCAA sport who symbolizes “the best of the best in collegiate athletics.”

At the World Athletics Championships, Butler will be one of Smith Gilbert’s runners in the 400 after qualifying at the U.S. Championships this summer.

“It’s an amazing opportunity for her and for me,” Butler said.

It’s an opportunity that they both earned through hard work, resilience, and by learning from their failures on the road to victory.

Assistant Sports Communications Director John Frierson is the staff writer for the UGA Athletic Association and curator of the ITA Men’s Tennis Hall of Fame. You can find his work at: Frierson Files.