Although this is Tonja Buford-Bailey’s first year as head coach of the Illinois women’s track and field team, she feels right at home.

Buford-Bailey is no stranger to this year’s Illini, as she has been part of the program for the past four years, spending three as an assistant before becoming the assistant head coach last season. Being hired from the inside, the transition for Buford-Bailey has been smooth. For her, it is business as usual, though with one major change.

“To me, everything seems normal except Gary (Winckler) isn’t here,” Buford-Bailey said.

With 11 Big Ten Championships in 23 seasons as a head coach, Winckler experienced great success leading up to his retirement after last season. In his absence, Buford-Bailey has been put in the enviable position of taking over a program while it is still strong.

“I’m not changing the system around at all, it’s been working for us,” Buford-Bailey said.

She takes over a team that returns many of the athletes that contributed to a fourth-place finish in the Big Ten Outdoor Championships and a fifth-place finish at the NCAA Mideast Regional Championships. The team returns six NCAA Championship qualifiers, five All-Americans and two Big Ten champions.

With so many returning athletes, Illinois has high hopes for the season.

“(We) definitely have strong expectations for all the events that are being competed in,” junior multi-event athlete Alecia Beckford-Stewart said. “Distance, short sprints, hurdles, jumps and throws, just everything. Everyone seems really prepared and everyone seemed really focused during the first semester that they’re really preparing to do great things this season.”

For some Illini, the high expectations act as motivation.

“Yeah, I’m happy about high expectations, it just makes me work harder,” senior transfer Deserea Brown said.

With the first indoor meet of the season coming Saturday at Bloomington, Ind., the Illini will face strong competition right off the bat, including four Big Ten teams. Buford-Bailey is not particularly thrilled about facing Big Ten opponents in the first meet not only after break, but of the season. Nevertheless, she sees the positives in an early trip to Gladstein Fieldhouse, which is also the site of the women’s Big Ten Indoor Championships from Feb. 28 to March 1.

“I’m not really crazy about that but, you know, it is what it is,” Buford-Bailey said. “This is the track where we’re going to be having our women’s conference meet so it’s not unexpected that a lot of Big Ten teams will want to come and get on the track . … We just want to see where everyone is fitness-wise after going home for the break. We knew where they were before the break now we have to see where things are now.”

Buford-Bailey hinted that better results may come next week after the team has had time to get back in the swing of things after break.

“We really do want to target our home meet on the 24th,” she said. “We’ll kind of find out where we have some holes at this weekend and focus a little bit on the next week of training to get ready for our home meet.”

The Illini will host the Carle/Health Alliance Invitational on Saturday, Jan. 24 at the UI Armory.