Jimmy Carnes was a leading advocate of amateur athletics and Olympic sports in the state of Florida and the nation who made Gainesville his home. As executive director of the both the Governor’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports and the Sunshine State Games Foundation, he almost single handedly built an amateur sports infrastructure in Florida second to none in the nation.

The Sunshine State Games was one of his biggest achievements. The still existing games has reached more than a quarter of a million young Floridians by offering an opportunity to continue their athletic pursuits in a host of sports.

In his life, Carnes forged partnerships between Olympic and state governing bodies, brought in development meets to spur economic impact in Florida cities, enhanced educational opportunities for coaches and administrators, provided sports development exposure for culturally diverse population groups, identified corporate and political funding sources to invest in sports venues and events across the state, and inspired the formation of a network of local sports commissions that has that made Florida a national model for improving the state of amateur sports.

Locally, he created the Gainesville Sports Organizing Committee which is now known as the Gainesville Sports Commission. The GSOC/GSC has brought in thousands of events and generated millions of dollars in revenue for the local economy. Carnes model has been duplicated in several Florida cities and in cities across the nation.

Nationally, he was on the Executive Board of the United States Olympic Committee for eleven years, The President of The Athletic Congress of USA(now the United States Track and Field Association- the governing body of USA Track and Field) for five years, was named one of the top 12 Physical Fitness Leaders in America by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1967 and in 1982 by President Ronald Reagan , was named as an Assistant Coach to the 1976 USA Olympic Track and Field team and the USA Head Track and Field Coach for the 1980 Olympic Games, and appointed to the Board of Trustees of Santa Fe Community College(now Santa Fe College) in 1985.

Jimmy Jerome Carnes grew up in Eatonton, GA and graduated from high school there. He went on to Mercer where he was on the track team. He married high school sweetheart, Nanette Marshall Bell. They both graduated from Mercer University (Macon, GA) and raised four children - Jerry, Bob, Nancy, and John. His wife, still lives in Gainesville in the same house they built in the early 1980s.

Prior to becoming the University of Florida Head Track and Field and Cross Country coach, Carnes was a successful high school and college coach. He won six Georgia state high school titles in cross country and track and field at Druid Hills High School in Decatur, GA, and as Furman track and field coach, won the Southern Conference Outdoor and Indoor Track and Field Championship team titles in 1962 and 1963.

Carnes replaced legendary UF Head Track and Field Coach and 1932 110 meter Olympic silver medalist, Percy Beard, who had held the job for 37 years. Beard led UF to two SEC Outdoor Track and Field Championship titles and four runner up finishes during his tenure, began the Florida Relays in 1939 and introduced the first all-weather track in America in 1959.

In his twelve years as Florida Track and Field Head Coach, 1964-1976, Carnes led the Gators to two SEC indoor track and field titles and four runner up finishes. In his tenure, he never finished lower than fourth place at the SEC Indoor Track and Field Championships.

 At the SEC Outdoor Track and Field Championships, Carnes led the Gators to four runner-up finishes and three Regional runner-up finishes.

His track and field dual meet record at the University of Florida was an astounding 93-3.

In Cross Country, Carnes’s teams finished runner up three times and finished third, four times.

Carnes’s track and field athletes won sixty-five SEC individual championships, four NCAA individual championships and earned twenty-four All American honors.

Carnes also improved on the all weather track first introduced by Beard and grew the Florida Relays to a multi-day even attracting 3,000 to 5,000 high school, college and open athletes from throughout Florida and the United States. The Florida Relays still attracts thousands of athletes and fans to Gainesville every spring.

Carnes was named as the President of the U.S. Track Coaches Association in 1968. However, it was in the area of integration where he made the most significant impact in the south and the nation.

The first black athlete to compete intercollegiately for UF was Johnny Brown, a runner recruited by Carnes from West Palm Beach, who led UF to a dual meet win over Baptist College on September 30, 1968. Also in 1968, Carnes recruited Ocala jumper Ron Coleman, the first Black to sign a UF athletic scholarship. Coleman won the SEC long jump titles in 1969 and 1970 and the triple jump titles in 1970 and 1972.

Carnes grew interests in the sport of track and field and cross country. He introduced  track and field clinics for both the public and college/high school coaches, created the Florida Track Club Junior Champ program for toddlers to teenage years ( which is still in existence), created a series of all-comers track and field meets, and offered collegiate and open decathlon events.

In addition to his UF head coach duties, Carnes founded the Florida Track Club (FTC), a competitive team for graduate students and other track and field athletes still competing at a national and international level.

One of the first athletes to compete for the FTC was Jack Bacheler, an entomology PhD candidate Carnes enticed to Gainesville in 1966. He was a finalist in the 5000 meters in the 1968 Olympics and finished 9th in the marathon in the 1972 games. Bacheler became widely recognized as the dominant American long distance runner of the era and was also known for designing the well-known orange and green logo of the FTC.

Another noteworthy FTC athlete was Frank Shorter. After graduating from Yale in 1969, NCAA 6-mile champion Shorter moved to Gainesville to begin law school and to train with the team of runners who had begun to coalesce around Bacheler. In addition to many other national and international titles, Shorter won the Olympic marathon in Munich in 1972 and finished second in Montreal in 1976.

Jeff Galloway was another FTC runner who had great success. He made the U.S. Olympic team in 1972 and continues to this day being a leader in advocating for running for all ages and abilities as an author and motivational speaker.  Also in 1972, UF NCAA champion high jumper Ron Jourdan, weight man and decathlete Harry Winkler made the U.S. Olympic squad in the sport of team handball.

The FTC had great success at the national cross country championships. They captured four US Track and Field Federation and AAU cross country team titles. Individually, Shorter(’70, ’71, ’72, ’73, ’75 AAU and ’70 USTFF) and Bacheler(‘69 USTFF and AAU) claimed  eight national titles. The FTC scored an all-time low score of 20 points in 1973 in winning the AAU title on a cross country course across from Santa Fe College.

Businesswise, Carnes also had great success. In 1973, Carnes co-founded the Athletic Attic with New Jersey transplant and Olympic miler, Marty Liquori. Later, a third partner, Jerry Schackow, a Gainesville trial lawyer was acquired. The Athletic Attic was one of the nation’s first athletic footwear store- a revolutionary idea in the United States. Carnes and Liquori had seen footwear stores in Munich, Germany at the 1972 Olympics and afterward drew from each other to open a store: Liquori opening the store and Carnes providing the athletic footwear. The first store in the upstairs portion of the still-standing Pinner’s Shoe Store(Then known as the Bill Pinner’s Shoe Store) in Westgate Regency Shopping Center. At the peak of the running boom, Athletic Attic had over 250 stores in the United States, Canada, Japan and New Zealand with over $60 million in annual revenue. The Athletic Attic’s Corporate Headquarters was in Gainesville.

Carnes resigned as the Gators track coach in September 1976 to focus on his Athletic Attic business interests and his Olympic coaching (He was named Assistant Coach of the 1976 Olympic Track and Field Team).

Carnes continued to be a visionary and promoter of athletics and physical fitness throughout his life.  In 1980 he was named the Chairman of the Governor's Council on Sports and Physical Fitness, which founded the Sunshine State Games. He was named the Chairman of the track division of the AAU in 1977. From 1980-1984, he served as the first President of The Athletic Congress/USA (now known as USA Track and Field- the governing body of USA Track and Field). There he initiated the concept of the TACTRUST, which was the first step in allowing athletes to earn income from their performances.

Carnes founded the USTFCCCA (United States Track Field Cross Country Coaches Association) that published a quarterly technical magazine edited by former FTC runner Dave Milliman.

He also was a member of the board of directors for the International Special Olympics for 21 years. This was exceptional given the term limits given to board members. Carnes was recognized by President Clinton at the White House for his contributions to the Special Olympics.

Jimmy Carnes was inducted into the Florida Sports Hall of Fame in 1980, the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame in 1984, the US Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 1998 and the USA Track and Field Hall of Fame in 2008. He was also inducted into the University of Florida Athletic Hall of Fame as an honorary letter winner in 1983.

Carnes passed away in March 5, 2011 after a three year battle with cancer at the age of 76. A month earlier, he attended the 9th Annual Jimmy Carnes’ Indoor Track and Field Invitational in the now defunct O’Connell Center Indoor Track and Field facility. Seated on the inside of the track, he watched competitors young and old compete in the sport he felt everyone could compete in no matter their ability, ethnicity, or gender. His impact on track and field, cross country and running locally, nationally, and internationally, is unmatched.