$60 million dollars.
That’s about the price of the Spec Towns Track Facility at the University of Georgia, a new track and field complex that opened this year for the Bulldogs. One of the nation’s top programs now has one of the nation’s top facilities, which will only help prepare a loaded Georgia squad for the NCAA postseason.
The facility
Spec Towns is on par with, if not beyond, some of the other top collegiate track and field facilities. The nearly $60 million price tag reported by multiple outlets is more than the nearly $15 million Texas’ Mike A. Myers Stadium cost back in 1998, and more than the $39.8 million Texas A&M spent on E.B. Cushing Stadium in 2019.
Yet, Spec Towns didn’t come to be magically. Construction began in 2024, and there was plenty of input from staff, coaches and players alike. Sprinter Kaila Jackson is on the athletic board at Georgia, and she played a part in the new facility coming to be, even speaking at the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the dedication of the track.
“I had a big input on a lot of things that went into play for the new track. I got to see the whole process, votes during the meetings and everything,” Jackson said. “Everyone felt the same as me when it came to things that we needed for the track. Everyone was all hands on deck and willing to help.”
The result? The new Bulldog home encompasses 37.24 acres, more than Oregon’s Hayward Field and more than Mt. SAC’s athletics complex.
| Size | Location |
|---|---|
| 32 acres | MT. SAC |
| 27.55 acres | Texas A&M |
| 26.95 acres | Michigan |
| 19.52 acres | Kansas |
| 18.17 acres | Oregon |
| 17.46 acres | LSU |
| 12.36 acres | Texas |
| 12.01 acres | Stanford |
| 11.71 acres | UCLA |
| 10.86 acres | Princeton |
| 4.92 acres | Southern California |
The new facility is on par with some of the greatest venues in track and field that I asked fans to name back in 2022.
Bulldog heptathlete Ella Rush has a unique perspective on how Spec Towns compares as a senior who has not only competed across the collegiate landscape but also internationally, hailing from Repton, United Kingdom, representing Gibraltar on the world stage. Rush has competed in countries including Denmark, Latvia, Colombia, Germany and more.
“I don't think anyone’s track compares to ours. That might be biased, but I did have a lot of teammates who were competing with me throughout the competition, and they were like, 'I've never seen something like this,' ” Rush said. “It's up there with how Oregon is built, for sure. In Oregon, the only thing different that you have is the mass seating around, but the track, the feeling around the environment, the weather, everything is no different.”
Ella Rush competes in the 100 hurdles in the heptathlon
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The first meet
Georgia first put the Spec Towns Track Facility on display for the collegiate world back at the aptly named Spec Towns Invitational from April 9-11. Few might’ve been more excited for the collegiate opening of the track than head coach Caryl Smith-Gilbert.
“I know this was something that she really wanted,” Jackson said. “She loves the new track. All she talks about is our home meet, so she's just as excited as we are.”
“For her to lead us through that first meet, she's been really, really excited about it,” high jumper Kimani Jack said. “We can now call this place home for the future, and I think it's gonna be really important to the university and really important to the track team as well. She's really excited to be a part of that and to be the leader of that as well.”
Coach Caryl Smith-Gilbert looks on at Spec Towns
That excitement showed itself in the performances on the track and in the field. Georgia took over the national leaderboard after the Spec Towns Invitational with multiple top-10 and top-20 performances, including five different national-leading marks at the time.
| NatL Rank | Event | Athlete | Mark | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Men's high jump | Kimani Jack | 2.24m | |
| 1 | Men's 4x400 meter relay | 4 athletes | 3:01.15 | |
| 1 | Men's 400 meter hurdles | Mohamed Adoni | 49.16s | |
| 1 | Women's triple jump | Skylynn Townsend* | 13.57m | |
| 1 | Women's 200 meters | Adaejah Hodge | 22.10 | |
| 2 | Women's 4x400 meter relay | 4 athletes | 3:24.29 | |
| 2 | Men's 110 hurdles | Le'Ezra Brown | 13.22s | |
| 3 | Men's javelin | Jordan Davis* | 77.59m | |
| 3 | Women's heptathlon | Ella Rush | 5795 pts | |
| 3 | Men's 200 meters | Jonathan Simms | 20.37s | |
| 4 | Women's 400 hurdles | Michelle Smith | 55.47s | |
| 5 | Women's 100 meters | Kaila Jackson | 11.03s | |
| 5 | Men's decathlon | Maximus Tucker | 7786 | |
| 7 | Women's 4x400 meter relay | 4 athletes | 3:27.39 | |
| 8 | Women's shot put | Nina Ndubuisi | 17.36m | |
| 8 | Men's javelin | Nick Reynolds+ | 74.28m | |
| 9 | Men's high jump | Riyon Rankin | 2.16m | |
| 11 | Women's 200 meters | Dejanea Oakley | 22.78s | |
| 12 | Women's 400 meters | Vimbayi Maisvorewa | 51.66s | |
| 18 | Women's 400 meters | Sole Frederick | 51.97s | |
| 19 | Women's shot put | Kelsie Murrell-Ross | 16.57m | |
| 19 | Men's 110 hurdles | Jayden Keys | 13.63s |
*Entered Spec Towns Invitational as national leader
+ Entered Spec Towns Invitational at No. 5 nationally
The Spec Towns Track Facility opened its collegiate era with a bang. There were top marks on a national level, plus a number of personal bests.
Rush scored a personal-best 5,797 points in the heptathlon — a top-10 score in school history — thanks to six personal bests out of seven events. Rush’s PR performance at home was even more important since it’s her last regular-season heptathlon. That’s not to say she won’t compete for the rest of the regular season, but rather the standout heptathlete won’t complete a full seven-event series until the SEC conference championship meet.
“To do the heptathlon and get a chance to show that I’m at home and I can pull it all together in my final year was exciting,” Rush said. “Everybody's PBing. It's a fast track. It was really nice weather conditions.”
The conditions made things easier for all of the Bulldogs at the home opener, but so did preparation.
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Practice makes perfect
Could Georgia’s success found at its home-opening meet be because of its ability to finally practice and compete in the same place? It definitely didn’t hurt the performance of the Bulldog track and field team.
“I was wondering how it would be between practicing on the track and then actually competing on it. I really enjoyed it,” Jack said. “When you are at home, you feel very comfortable because when at home, you're in your own ends.”
“When you're more comfortable, you tend to run better. The new facility and being able to train and compete there is just a blessing,” Jackson said. “I know this track; I'm here every day. I know what zones I'm supposed to hit and where I'm supposed to be at certain spots of the race, so I think that really helped a lot being able to be at home.”
The comfort even extends beyond the actual competition itself into the little details that can sometimes get overlooked in a multi-day track meet.
“I do feel like I kind of had the upper hand compared to other competitors. I knew how everything was laid out," Rush said. “Throughout the competition, people were asking me, 'Where's the javelin? Where's the shot put going to happen?' That's usually me in that position, trying to find out the venue, where to go and how to use things.”
The familiarity that comes with a home track meet allowed the Bulldogs to have a sharper focus on the competition itself, locking in en route to those standout performances.
Kimani Jack's nation-leading high jump at Spec Towns
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The shot put
Another aspect that has made the Spec Towns Track Facility unique is its setup for throws. While some stadiums will have events like the shot put and discus set up inside the stadium, UGA has a competition area for those events outside of the stadium. The shot put has amphitheater-style seating, allowing spectators to get close to support their favorite throwers. The hammer throw is also outside of the stadium, but not at a distance where a walk for fans feels cumbersome.
“I think the best thing about our track is that it just kind of has everything for everyone. Some tracks around the country, they're great if you're a sprinter or they're great if you're a jumper, or they're great if you're a thrower,” Jack said. “We have one of the best throwing facilities I've ever seen. We have multiple pits, we have so much space for a high jump, a great track for the sprinters. It's just really great for the whole team instead of just one section of the team, and that's what I think makes it really cool.”
Rush got to compete in the shot put arena during her heptathlon in the setup at Spec Towns and could feel the difference.
“It felt enclosed and energetic. I feel like within the throws, we don't have enough people coming to watch and support, but with the seating, everybody was close,” Rush said. "They were able to cheer. We had like parents and people sitting there, but also our own teammates.”
Fans look on at the shot put at Spec Towns
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The community
The shot put highlighted the overwhelming community support at Georgia’s home-opening meet. Classmates and fellow athletes across Georgia’s athletic department showed up as well as local fans.
“We hadn't had a home meet since my freshman year. The turnout with the crowd was just so amazing and it just kept us all going because there was just great energy in the facility,” Jackson said.
“The atmosphere was great. I haven't really felt an atmosphere like that all year and it was really cool,” Jack said.
The fan support proved to be worth it at the Spec Towns Invitational. The fans showed up and the athletes showed out. It’s a mutual, reciprocal relationship between the track team and the fans.
“We try to put on a show for the local people here in Athens and around the university. We feel like they deserve it and we also wanna showcase the best of our abilities and showcase what the track team can really do,” Jack said.
Georgia fans packed out Spec Towns Track Facility
The benefits of the new facility
One might think that having a new facility could benefit recruiting at Georgia. Since Georgia Athletic Director Josh Brooks announced on May 26, 2023, that the Bulldogs would plan to build a new track and field facility, the Bulldogs have signed the most five-star true freshmen (per SCA) with 16 combined across men and women in the last two years — more than any other track and field program.
| No. of Five Stars | Year (Gender) |
|---|---|
| 5 | 2025 (Men) |
| 4 | 2025 (Women) |
| 2 | 2024 (Men) |
| 5 | 2024 (Women) |
However, the new facility isn’t the driving force for some of the top prospects becoming future Bulldogs. Kimani Jack knows this best as a first-year transfer.
”I was told about the new track, and I was told it was gonna open this season,” Jack said. "Was it the main focus of my recruitment? No. The main focus of my recruitment really was about the community of the University of Georgia. I think the community and how we work as a team were really the main factors.”
Meanwhile, veterans like Rush and Jackson didn't have any idea about the a potential new facility before they committed back in 2022, and they had doubts post-announcement that the facility would be finished before they exhausted their eligibility.
“After the first home meet in 2023, there wasn’t any more. I didn't know if we would be back in Athens anytime soon,” Jackson said.
“I was thinking like, 'This would be typical if I didn't even get one season on it’ because I was so excited. They talked about all of the plans and preparations and how long it would take, and I knew how much time and effort they were putting into it,” Rush said.
Whether veteran or newcomer, the potential and allure of a new facility hasn’t yet played a major role in Georgia’s ability to acquire some of the most talented athletes in the NCAA. That could change now that an actual meet has taken place, but so far, Georgia’s relied on a strong culture to bring winning talent.
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New track, same championship hopes
That same talent is part of the reason Georgia’s been a winning program. Now, a new track and field facility could also be a reason.
The Bulldogs have had the following success in recent NCAA championships. They won the 2026 women’s indoor national title, the 2025 women’s outdoor national title, had a pair of runner-up men’s and women’s indoor finishes in 2025 and a pair of top-10 men’s and women’s outdoor finishes in 2024 since the announcement of Spec Towns.
With the ability to compete at Spec Towns, the Bulldogs now have a track facility on par with Hayward Field. It gives athletes opportunities in practice each day to know what it’s like to compete on a championship-level surface. It’ll be a much easier transition into a championship mindset.
“I can go to Hayward Field and just take it up another notch without kind of changing or adapting. I feel like that also comes down to run ups for my example. A lot of the time when you're running on a slower track, it can be hard, and you end up changing your run up a lot more than when you're on these fast tracks,” Rush said. “[Now] you wouldn't have to do that. You wouldn't have to make any changes, and I think that's the position that you want to be in. You just want to dial everything in for championships.”
Having a new facility also helps morale when chasing a championship during a long season. The outdoor season for most starts in mid-March and it doesn’t end until June. That’s three months of competition after an indoor season. Practices can be long, tedious and difficult as athletes prepare for a four-day meet on the opposite coast.
“Having this facility sort of helps us to enjoy the hard moments of track a lot more,” Jack said. “We're practicing hard, trying to improve every day, and that's not pretty all the time. Having a place that you can call home and having such an amazing facility sort of makes you happier and a lot more ready to go to sort of do those things that might be hard, but the things that are necessary for you to perform at the best of your ability.”
As the Bulldogs chase their championship aspirations, the Spec Towns Track Facility has been, and looks to be, a boost towards Georgia’s ultimate goals.
“We put a lot into our sport to get the rewards that we want,” Jackson saud. “Having this new facility has just made us want to go even harder and train even harder on something that's new for all of us. I think it'll really help us in the end when it comes to nationals.”
Kaila Jackson runs the 100m at Spec Towns
What’s next
A championship remains the goal, but there’s over a month of action before Georgia sees if a new facility pays off in the team’s first year outdoors. In the meantime, another collegiate meet is scheduled for the weekend of May 2 with the Torrin Lawrence Memorial meet.
Ella Rush will get to compete in front of her family, which includes a former professional rugby player dad and a professional soccer player brother. They couldn’t be more excited.
“With the score that I got at the last meet, they're like, ‘We have to see this facility.’ Next month they're coming up, and it will be fun to show them everything,” Rush said.
Beyond the Torrin Lawrence Memorial meet, the 2027 SEC Outdoor Track and Field Championships will head to Athens and likely reset any early facility records. SECs are one of the top meets in the NCAA each year, and one of the closest previews we get of national championships.
Could the NCAA championship meet one day come to the Spec Towns Track Facility? The championship meet is currently booked for Eugene through 2028, but the current Bulldogs are still hopeful that one day, Athens could play host now that they have a new facility.
“I feel we have the right environment. The community in the area really, really loves track and field, so if we were able to get the opportunity to host, I think we’d do a great job,” Jack said.
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