A Ray Of Light After The Storm

TRINTY RETURNS AS COACH WITH FORMER TEAMMATE SKAGGS

As most of Gator Nation was tuning into the baseball championship game Monday Florida’s duo of Jasmine Moore(Track and Field) and Trinity Thomas (Gymnastics) received their 2023 Honda awards Monday as the top collegiate female athlete in their sport while in Los Angeles.

The baseball game was out of hand by the time the presentation show came on and was a welcome ray of sunshine. Florida was the only university to have two women recognized. The overall award winner went to Iowa Basketball’s Caitlin Clark. She became must-see TV during the NCAA tournament last season and was a deserving winner. Florida is number three all time with 28 Honda award recipients. The Gators have had winners in 8 sports, leading all schools.

As they interview the winners by season for fall, winter and spring, I was excited to hear Trinity Thomas announced she would be back at the University of Florida, working on her third degree. In addition, Trinity will be a Student/Coach in 2024, joining former teammate Megan Skaggs on the coaching staff. Megan was an Assistant to the Head Coach after graduating the year before. Associate head coach Adrian Burde, associate head coach Owen Field and volunteer coach Jeremy Miranda round out the coaching staff.

Trinity will be working on her masters in Entrepreneurship. She graduated with a masters in Health Education and behavior in May after receiving her bachelors in Applied Physiology and Kinesiology and Fitness and Wellness Cum Laude. Earlier in June Thomas was in Washington DC lobbying for NIL reform. Florida was the only university to bring multiple athletes. Trinity was joined by defensive end Jack Pyburn and women's basketball player Zippy Broughton.

Trinity Quotes-

How have you grown?“ I guess coming off my senior year -- I came off of an insane year to say the least. So coming back from something like that can be kind of hard. Obviously my expectations for myself were already high and I came back and I knew this time was my last year and I honestly just told myself that I just wanted to enjoy it and at first I was very uptight and it was hard to enjoy it because I wanted everything to be so perfect and I just wanted everything to go right and I think I learned to let go and let things just happen and go in there everyday and try my best and that was good enough and so I'm just so proud of myself to have been able to really enjoy my last year and to come out and just have fun.”

“Being named the Honda sport award winner for the second time is unbelievable. Honestly, it's one of the biggest goals that I set for myself when I stepped foot on campus. The first time was incredible and the second time was equally amazing and just so exciting. And I couldn't be more honored and blessed to have had the career that I had here at Florida and to be named a second time.

“The power of dreams is powerful -- honestly, no pun intended, it all starts with a dream, a thought, so you start there and then you put all the work in, all the effort in after that to make your dreams come true. So the power of dreams is an incredible thing that you get to start from and go to the top of the staircase from there.”

Thomas is indeed one of the special student athletes ever to have worn the Orange and Blue. She will get one more trip to Fort Worth, more then likely, with a loaded team back in 2024. Hopefully she will be there to get that National Championship that has been way too close the last two years and finally hoist that team trophy in April.