When Robert Gary, his wife, Rita, and assistant coach, Chris Neal, stepped on Furman's campus for the first time as the new track and field and cross country staff in August of 2012, they figured they had a long road ahead. Gary and Neal had previously worked together coaching the men's and women's teams at Ohio State for the past four years; Gary's tenure as a coach had lasted since 1996, before which he was a student-athlete at OSU. 

"We certainly thought in five years, we'd be rockin' and rollin'," Gary said over the phone last week. "Though we had a lot of highlights a little bit earlier than I anticipated. We really crushed recruiting our first year and that got the ball rolling."

The powerhouse academic school in the sleepy hills of Greenville, South Carolina enticed Gary away from his Power 5 alma mater thanks in part to a generous endowment from Chris Borch, a 1978 alumnus who, with his wife Andrea, has donated more than $4 million to the operating budget of the Paladins' running programs since 2005, including undergraduate scholarships, coaching endowment and the development of the professional team Furman Elite. In September, the couple pledged another $1 million to build locker room facilities at the track.

But having the money was just step one. The real work has taken place on the roads and the track over the past five years.