- May 4, 2024
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Dave Halliday never wanted to be a track coach. He aspired to a career in sports management and administration, which was his major in college. But all of that changed when he interned at the Governor’s Council on Physical Fitness under Jimmy Carnes. Carnes, a former head coach at the University of Florida and member of the U.S. Track and Field Hall of Fame, wanted Halliday to coach. And he belabored the point.
“He just kept hammering me for six weeks straight,” Halliday recalled. “We’d go out to lunch on Fridays, and he’d just try to convince me.”
On the last day of his internship, Carnes gave Halliday a signed copy of a book he co-authored back in the 1970s. It focused on the art of coaching track. The gesture changed Halliday’s position, if only a smidgen.
“The more I kept thinking about it, I thought ‘maybe,’” he recalled.
He’s since turned that “maybe” into a 20-plus year coaching career, and two weeks ago was voted to the Florida Athletic Coaches Association Hall of Fame as part of that organization’s 39th class. Halliday, a graduate of Seabreeze High School, is the first Flagler County coach to be voted in.
Halliday began his career at Atlantic High School in Port Orange 20 years ago and took the post at FPC in 2004. In 2009, he led the Bulldogs to a state championship. He also brought home a state title at Columbia High School in Lake City.
“The mayor actually gave me the key to the city, so that was huge,” Halliday said of the Lake City title run.
Initially, Halliday and his family bounced around from place to place — Lake City, Columbia, and finally, Tallahassee — where he became a graduate assistant for the Seminoles, and where his wife, Kim, earned a doctorate. But as a couple of UF grads, that would never do. At least, not permanently.
“We were kinda like strangers in a strange land,” he said of his time in Tallahassee. “We never felt like that was going to be the final spot.”
And so, when the Hallidays were on vacation during Memorial Day weekend in 2004, they ran into Katrina Townsend, an old friend and Flagler County Schools’ Director of Student Services. The Hallidays weren’t fishing for jobs, but when they left the beach one afternoon, Dave had a voicemail.
“All we have is beach clothes, we don’t have suits and ties or anything,” Halliday recalled replying when he was asked to interview. “Wham, bam, we both got hired here, and that’s all she wrote.”
Since 2009, Halliday has also served as the FACA’s track and field chairman, organizing coaches’ clinics.
“What Dave brings is commitment to whomever’s in his program,” FPC Athletics Director Steve DeAugustino said. “He creates a family atmosphere out there and does a great job of working with each individual kid.”
FPC senior Jimmie Robinson, an all-state sprinter who is receiving college offers in both track and football, remembers Halliday teaching him how to get out of the blocks when he was a freshman.
“He’s an outstanding coach,” Robinson said. “He pushes you to the limit. He’s a coach you want to be around. He makes you want to work every day, to come out and get better.”
Robinson’s 4x100 teammate Marcel Williams spoke to Halliday’s ability to work with runners of varying experience levels.
“He’ll teach you everything you want to know,” Williams said. He’ll work the basics, until he thinks you can go to that next level, one year at a time.”
Halliday’s been a best man in two of his former runners’ weddings, and recently one of his former athletes —now an assistant principal — called to say his former coach inspired a youth track program he created.
“I didn’t go into this looking for accolades and all that, but it’s been a lot of fun,” Halliday said. “It’s not about the state championships and all that. It’s the relationships that I’ve made along the way.”
More honors coming?
Dave Halliday has also been nominated as a Brooks Running Company Inspiring Coach finalist. If Halliday receives the most votes at the end of the nationwide contest, FPC’s track teams will receive $5,000 worth of running gear from Brooks. Vote for Coach Halliday until July 30 at facebook.com/brooksrunning
