Kayla Parker’s career at Kentucky changed on a team bus trip in Nebraska in February of last year.The UK track and field team was just a few months into head coach Edrick Floreal’s first year in charge of the program and much of the team had not yet adjusted to the concepts the new staff was trying to instill.Parker — who experienced mixed results on the track in her first two years in Lexington and struggled to find a signature event, even trying her hand in the grueling pentathlon and heptathlon — for her part was one of the first Wildcats to buy into the novel “Floreal” ethos.With the Wildcats riding back from Nebraska’s indoor track after a meet performance below the team’s expectations, certain team members were acting as though they weren’t upset about the lackluster results. Parker, knowing the coaching staff would not take kindly to seeing the team in such good spirits after competing so poorly, stood up in front of her teammates to voice her disapproval.”It seemed like people didn’t care, and it kind of frustrated me,” Parker said. “People were nonchalant. We just lost, why are you still laughing and joking? That was when I stood up and said something. Usually I talk to people individually, but that day was different. I can’t repeat what I said on the bus, but I think the team got the message.”Word of Parker’s talk with the team certainly got around and her head coach took notice, seeing the intervention as an initial turning point in the UK track and field culture. “If we’re going to win anything as a team the athletes have to be the ones who take ownership,” Floreal said. “Kayla was one of the first people to do that. She took ownership on that bus. I was riding separate from the team, but later I heard Kayla had said something to the team and some team members were worried at how much the meet had affected her. “My reaction was the opposite; I thought, this is perfect. We’re starting to get people who think of it as ‘my team.’ She was making sure there was accountability.”Parker’s sense of accountability translated into results shortly after her speech, as she began running head-turning times in the 100-meter hurdles.Whereas in 2012, she failed to even make the final at the Southeastern Conference Championships, she finished fourth overall in 2013. Then she qualified for the NCAA Championships and broke a decade-old school record.She has continued to wow early this season as Parker ran the nation’s second-fastest 60-meter hurdles time last month, 8.24, breaking another school record in the process.Parker attributes her success to buying into her coach’s philosophies and moreover, holding herself accountable to the same standards she asks of her teammates.The team’s new standards were difficult to adjust to at first, and could explain why it took until the 2013 outdoor season before the hard work really started to pay off.And the team has bought in too. Led by Parker, the UK women’s team is ranked No. 6 in the preseason poll, released Monday. “It was just too easy not to do everything in your power to get better before,” Parker said. “Now we know the coaches’ expectations are higher, and in turn our teammates expect more of each other too. You notice the difference in training, but also off the track. Everyone is just committed to the cause.”Parker led the way in changing her attitude toward the sport and competition. Kentucky’s recent influx of talent into the program has only hastened the rest of the team’s shift in outlook. UK’s ascent to national contender status, due in large part to Parker’s emergence and a 2013 recruiting class ranked No. 5 nationally by “Track and Field News,” has brought a level of competition to practice sessions previously unseen. Parker certainly was challenged in training by teammates like transfer Kendra Harrison — a seven-time All-American and six-time Atlantic Coast Conference Champion — which seems to have translated into results given her top-class start to the season.”As coaches we try to explain to the kids the things they need to do to be successful, but you can never fully impart that wisdom just by talking,” Floreal said. “When you have members of the team that have been to the highest level the rest of the team gets a glimpse and that work ethic rubs off. That is important as you try to build a winning culture.Like her coach, Parker knows preseason rankings do not make a successful year a given. Plenty of work — as well as speeches to the team, should they be necessary — remains.”It’s just the beginning,” said Floreal of the strides his team has made in the past year, largely because of the steps Parker and other have taken to improve. “We’re not there yet. Things like preseason rankings are small steps, but we have to put in the work to perform when in counts.”An initial test of how the many dividends the the team’s hard work will yield comes this weekend when UK hosts the Kentucky Invitational at the Nutter Field House.