Bursting from the starting block in lane 5, Bradley Franklin seized command immediately. Competing in the outdoor 110-meter hurdles, his strides produced a powerful rhythm: step-step-step-launch, step-step-step-launch. Before he even reached the halfway point, the race was his to win. Challenged only by the clock, the freshman crossed the finish line at 13.56 seconds, earning the Southern Conference title and smashing the old league record by three-tenths of a second.

Franklin, in his first year as a Bulldog, has emerged as a new face of Samford track and field, yet there are countless faces responsible for a program whose dominance within the conference now seems as certain as the crape myrtles blooming on campus.

Since Samford joined the SoCon in 2008, the men’s and women’s track and field teams have collectively won 31 conference championships, competing in both indoor and outdoor track and field. The women's team has won six consecutive outdoor and 10 indoor championships, and the men’s team has claimed the last five outdoor and six indoor titles.

The evolution of this mid-major dynasty requires immense resources and waves of talent, but at the core, there is a unifying element that supports longevity: a culture of soaring expectations.

For Franklin, a high-profile recruit, the unyielding standards became apparent during his first training session at Samford, when he experienced an environment so shocking to the senses that he felt like he had “entered one of those industrial walk-in refrigerators.”

“It was just different here,” he said. “Everyone was pushing each other so hard. After every rep they were encouraging you to get up and get ready for the next one.”

That climate, one of student-athletes holding each other accountable to build a championship mindset, is precisely what head coach Rod Tiffin envisioned upon his own arrival to Samford in 2007, when the roster was composed almost exclusively of distance runners. Building out the program with sprinters and field event participants required administrative commitment, aggressive recruiting and a coach who could deliver the plan.

That suited Tiffin, who recalls, “I don’t think they hired me to keep the status quo.”

Building a Winning Team

After Samford swept the 2025 SoCon Outdoor Track and Field Championships in May—the fifth year in a row that both men’s and women’s teams were victorious—athletics director Martin Newton marveled at Tiffin’s run of success.

“He’s so competitive in everything he does,” Newton said. “He has dominated this league because he has a great understanding of how to put a team together. When it comes to setting up a roster to score points and win championships, I think Rod is as good as anybody in the country.”

That traces back to Tiffin’s affinity for recruiting student-athletes who can contribute across multiple events. In track and field, the top eight finishers earn points in most events—typically a 10-8-6-5-4-3-2-1 scoring format. Teams are jockeying for crucial scoring in the middle and rear of the pack. Advancing more student-athletes through the preliminaries increases the chances of a school scoring in the event final. (Behind Franklin’s runaway victory in the 110-meter hurdles, for instance, Samford sprinters earned points for placing third, fourth and eighth.)

“We want to build from decathlon out on the men’s side and from the heptathlon out with the women. We’ll always have four to six decathletes in our program, because they can spread out and do so much when we need a little extra help here and there,” said Tiffin, who was a two-time All-SEC decathlete at Auburn University in the late 1980s.

 An Auburn degree in economics still hangs on his office wall, though it’s merely a reminder of the year he toiled as a mortgage banker. “Wearing a suit and tie every day, that just wasn’t me,” Tiffin said. “I was thinking, ‘What are you doing, man?’ It was the first time I had been out of athletics in my life.”

 He got his coaching start as a grad assistant before becoming DI’s youngest head coach at UAB, where he admitted, “I really wasn’t prepared to be a head coach. I could have been confused for a student because I was so young.”

 Tiffin truly blossomed during 13 years as a full-time assistant at both Auburn and the University of Alabama under the late legend Harvey Glance.

 “Harvey and I had those years together, and I figured out a lot about what I wanted to do as a head coach when I got that opportunity again,” he said. “The time that I spent with Harvey taught me so much about how I would want to run a program. It made me the person and the coach that I am today.”

The coach he is today is absurdly decorated. Samford’s stretch of dominance has resulted in Tiffin earning 24 SoCon Coach of the Year awards spanning the indoor and outdoor seasons. He compares the momentum to “a ball rolling downhill,” with each group of new recruits learning the “Samford way” and then developing into exemplary leaders for the next batch of newcomers.

“We consider our program to be athlete-driven, and it relies on our fourth- and fifth-year guys and girls filtering things down about the kind of tradition that we have,” he said. “The older athletes are walking the walk every day, and they have managed to keep it going for years and years. If I’m the one who’s having to yell and scream at people out there, it’s not going to work.”

Shaping Lives On and Off the Track 

When Tiffin departed the University of Alabama to become Samford’s head coach 18 years ago, he implored pole vaulter Pat Wells to come along. At that point, Wells was a semester shy of graduating in Tuscaloosa and about to give up on a college track career that had been defined by multiple ankle surgeries and untapped potential.

“I thought I was done,” Wells said. “I wasn’t traveling with the team at Alabama, and being on a rehab schedule, I had lost my motivation. But Coach T said, ‘No, Pat, you can’t go out like that. You’ve got to go with me.’ I think he knew my heart.”

The coach who had recruited Wells out of high school made a convincing argument once again, convincing Wells.

to transfer to Samford even though it meant losing 48 hours’ worth of class credits toward his finance degree.

The sacrifice proved worth it. Wells embraced the fresh start at Samford and authored a stark turnaround, qualifying for the NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships three consecutive years. His already-close relationship with Tiffin grew so tight that the two candidly discussed whether Samford should consider bringing in another pole vaulter, Tennessee transfer Michael Seaman.

“I couldn’t be selfish,” Wells said. “Just like I benefitted from a fresh start, Michael, who had broken his back at Tennessee, needed a fresh start. It was more about how we could invite more people to the table and improve as a program.”

Seaman became a five-time All-American and set a SoCon indoor record, another example of Tiffin coaxing student-athletes to heights they might not see in themselves.

Samford has served as a soft landing for several transfers from the SEC and other power conferences. At the mid-major level, student-athletes can be less than perfect and still survive the prelims.

“There’s a little bit of room to breathe,” said Tiffin. “They can come here and end up being All-Americans because they have the talent. It’s just a little bit of a mindset that we help them work through.”

Wells wound up completing his finance degree at Samford in 2010 and added an MBA two years later. Now 38, he oversees 110 employees as CEO of two companies, frequently using lessons gleaned from watching Tiffin galvanize the track teams.

“It shaped my life, and it shaped how I manage and lead people. Coach T did it better than I’ve ever seen it done. He led us as a team while coaching us all as individuals. That means you can’t treat everybody the same. There are certain people you’ll give three, four or five chances because you see that they’re doing the right things and pulling it together. You just give certain people some grace,” Wells said. “That takes effort, energy, emotion and time to get to know people individually. It’s hard. A lot of people want to manage by the employee handbook, but that doesn’t breed loyalty or trust. It doesn’t breed relationships.”

Teammates Investing in Each Other

On the opening day of the 2025 SoCon Outdoor Track and Field Championships in May, alumna Ashley Cope met several of her former teammates at the track to watch their alma mater compete. Her thoughts drifted back to 2014, to the meet that portended Samford’s rise, when the men’s and women’s teams cheered each other on during their first sweep of SoCon titles.

 “Lining the fence that day and watching as it came down to the final relay, it’s still one of my favorite memories,” Cope said. “We were all training partners who had suffered through workouts together, so we were really invested in each other.”

 That was Cope’s senior year, marked by a SoCon repeat in the heptathlon. She also won the 2014 pentathlon, along with the 100-meter hurdles and pole vault in 2013. Her championship assortment led to her induction in the Samford Athletics Hall of Fame and harkened back to the versatility Tiffin seeks in student-athletes.

 “I think young people should play as many different sports as they can instead of specializing,” he said. “If I’m recruiting a young person and they’re doing four sports and they’re talented enough to be successful, that’s the person I want. I remember signing Ashley Cope after she called me up and was excited about scoring 37 points in her high school basketball game the previous night.”

 Cope almost wasn’t a part of the 2014 team’s breakthrough. Having been stricken with mono in the fall, her training lagged. Tiffin suggested a redshirt season might be best for her individually despite admitting “we’re not going to be able to win without you.” The thoughtfulness around giving her a choice showed why Tiffin is so relatable to student-athletes.

“He’s super personal to the point I think of him as a dad,” she said. “He very much wants you to have a good college experience, just like a parent would.”

 After graduating, Cope spent eight years as an assistant under Tiffin. During this time, she helped recruit All-American Selena Popp ’19, who broke all the records Cope set as a student-athlete.

“I think it’s cool to have better athletes follow in your footsteps. That’s the fun part about watching the team continue to be successful. Referrals are your best clients, and that’s what attracts great athletes to come in,” she said.

Eye-Opening Recruitment

 Winning the 2023 Alabama Class 7A state championship as a junior at nearby Thompson High School gave Franklin a promising profile. He then emerged among the nation’s elite hurdlers his senior year by lowering his time in the 110-meter hurdles from 13.77 to a state record 13.37.

Landing a recruit like Franklin is the latest example of how far Samford has elevated beyond the typical mid-major program. “Recruits see that we offer big-time DI competition in a small-college environment,” Tiffin said.

Winning is contagious and resources are more than sufficient.

“You’re going to have everything here that you need to be successful,” Tiffin said. “We have two boost treadmills— not the 10 you might see lined up at a Power Four school, but we have two. And we have an underwater treadmill, whereas you may see five of those at a Power Four school. You’re going to get shirts and practice gear and two or three pair of shoes. You’re just not going to get 20 things that you can give out as Christmas gifts.”

As he toured the recruiting circuit, Franklin believed he could pursue greatness at Samford. Afforded space to develop and build confidence, he wouldn’t risk getting crowded out among the six or seven student-athletes competing within one event at a Power Four program. “At the core of my decision,” he said, “I knew at Samford I could be a priority.”

It also helped that Samford’s School of the Arts is placing an emphasis on Franklin’s preferred major, game design. If a record-smashing sprinter designing the fluid movement of video game characters seems too on-the-nose, Franklin said his biggest adjustment to college life has been balancing his track schedule against the slew of paintings, drawing and digital class projects.

 The adjustment he fretted over the most—moving from 39-inch hurdles in high school to the NCAA’s 42-inch standard—hasn’t hurt his competition profile. Franklin won the SoCon indoor 60-meter hurdles in a school-record 7.60 seconds. That performance earned indoor Freshman of the Year honors from the conference and qualified Franklin for nationals. His deepening relationship with Tiffin has been a bonus.

“The fatherly descriptor is pretty accurate because he almost feels like a track dad,” Franklin said. “He locks in and stands on business when he needs to, but most of the time he’s really chill and encouraging.”

As Samford’s success generates opportunities for Tiffin to return to a Power Four program, he insists “there’s no better job for me in the country.” There’s satisfaction in the day-to-day grind of training young people, helping them break through barriers, helping them realize “things that they don’t even know about themselves.”

Suggesting retirement may be more than a decade away, Tiffin is optimistic that the compounding interest of championships, and the buy-in that makes student-athletes accountable, can continue replenishing the dynasty.

“I try not to count the trophies, and I try not to look back,” he said. “I know what it takes every time to win, and it’s not easy. That’s why I always say the next championship is going to be my favorite.”

 This story was first published in the summer 2025 issue of Samford Magazine (formerly known as Seasons). You can read the issue online.