As featured in April 1997
Over the Top
Olympic Star's Positive Thoughts Take Jackie Joyner-Kersee Over Health Hurdles
By Corigan Russell and Vincent F.A. Golphin
It's a well-known fact, those who knew Jackie Joyner-Kersee, even as a child, saw her headed for greatness. Her parents named the East St. Louis-born runner after Jacqueline Kennedy in response to her grandmother's quip that "some day this girl will be the first lady of something." But it seemed unlikely that someone with exercise-induced asthma would become what some sports experts say is the all-time greatest female athlete. Her long-time struggles with pulled hamstrings made that accomplishment even less probable, but it is true.
She is the first woman to win consecutive Olympic gold medals in the
heptathlon-a two-day, trial-by-fire made up of the 200-meter dash, 100-meter
hurdles, high jump, shotput, long jump, javelin throw, and an 800-meter
run- in 1988 and 1992. No other U.S. female athlete has done that. The U.S.
Olympic Committee voted her "1994 Female Athlete of the Year."
That year, U.S. Track and Field magazine, and the Interna
tional Amateur Athletic Federation bestowed the same title on her.
In 1988, she scored a world record 7, 291 points in the heptathlon; 7,044 in 1992. Only seven times in Olympic history has a woman scored more than 7,000 points in the challenging and exhaustive two-day event. Six of those times, Jackie Joyner-Kersee accomplished that extraordinary feat.
"I had to really get myself together mentally, because I know God blessed me with the athletic ability to do it, but I think it's the mental aspect of it that makes you a champion," she told a crowd last month in Rochester, New York. Joyner-Kersee was keynote speaker for the Women's History Month celebration sponsored by the Women's Caucus of the University of Rochester.
She brings that message to a variety of audiences as a sought-after motivational speaker. Asthma sufferers, through the national research and education association, are encouraged to view her as a role model. Also, she brings those insights to urban youth (as many as 14,000 in East St. Louis and the surrrounding area) through the Jackie Joyner-Kersee Youth Center Foundation.
"Even if you're not an athlete, you can still be healthy and active every day," is one of the choice quotes for asthma sufferers on a World Wide Web site sponsored by Glaxo/Wellcome, a pharmaceutical company. "Asthma doesn't have to prevent you from exercising or playing sports. ...I like to win. And I think sticking with the program can make a winner of anyone who has asthma. It's a commitment you make everyday to be just as good as you can be."
At age nine, Joyner ran her first track meet and soon began collecting first prizes. About the same time she forged a sense of determination that steeled her against all obstacles, physical and social.
"That's the difference between failing and succeeding," the athlete said. "I started to develop myself mentally. Trying not to let my friends distract me, or say things to the point where I didn't want to go out on the track, because I was considered a tomboy, or that something was wrong with me.
"As a young girl, you start to question yourself, and start to lose sight of what you want to do in life, and you find yourself doing things that you're not comfortable with. I decided I didn't care if they didn't like me, or if I was considered different."
Her support came from the staff of a nearby community center. "I was not one of the best girls on the team, but my goals and dreams were to improve myself each time I stepped out on the track," she said. "As long as I was doing that, I felt good about what I was doing; not only athletically, but also academically (she graduated in the top 10 percent of her class). I was involved in everything. It was a way to spend time away from home, but my mom knew I was okay, at the community center. I just signed up for all sorts of things, not realizing that this would take me to UCLA, or to the Olympics."
At 14, she won her first National Junior Pentathlon Championship, and before high school graduation she would do the same three more times. At Lincoln High School, she set a state record for the long jump and played basketball. She averaged 52 points a game. Then in 1976, she set her sights on the Olympics.
"I set my sights on four years from then, hoping I could make the
1980 team," she said. "At that time I wasn't sure if I wanted
to be a sprinter, a jumper, or what it was I wanted to do, but I watched
the '76 Olympic games on television, and I remember seeing Evelyn Ashford
run the 100 meters and finish fifth.
"I had competed in a lot of different events, but when I noticed there weren't a lot of women doing multiple events, I wanted to participate in the pentathlon. It was a matter of me trying to master my techniques, because I thought I had a great technique since I was winning my races.
"I thought I was good, but when I went against the rest of the girls in the country, I got a rude awakening. ...If I wanted to run hurdles, I had to run hurdles and not jump the hurdleslike I was doing. If I wanted to long jump, I had to learn to be consistent, and learn to execute-at that time it was 19 or 20 feet, and I had to be consistent in jumping that distance."
When she stepped onto the track at the 1980 Olympic trials in Eugene, Oregon, Joyner-Kersee said she knew she was physically ready, but was afraid. The challenge was to ready her mind. "I thought, 'Oh my God, these are the best athletes in America.' Here I was talking about going to the Olympics, but I had to get through this first!" she said. "It was tough to handle, but I realized if there was something I really wanted to do, I'd have to get myself together mentally." The meet provided a chance for growth. Joyner-Kersee was not outstanding, although she extended her personal best in the long jump reaching 29 feet, three-quarter inches.
Her high school academic and sports prowess earned her a scholarship to the University of California at Los Angeles. Joyner-Kersee confides she was immature. The only thing she thought about was sunny California as a great way to get away from the cold Midwest. She had no way of knowing West Coast life would test her determination.
"It was scary in California. I thought the people were crazy, and I felt I wasn't getting the best coaching. I called my high school coaches, saying I wanted to transfer," she said. "My coach told me my focus should be to get an education. He reminded me that I'd worked so hard to get into an educational institution, when people in my hometown said I wouldn't make it. I had never looked at it that way. Before that I had begun to think there wasn't a lot of money in track; no one would come to draft me for a professional team. However, I was the first person to receive a scholarship and go to college, but I was ready to give it up because I wasn't enjoying the athletic side. I am glad I picked up the telephone that day and was reminded of the real priorities. Once I was able to put that into focus, everything fell into place."
An assistant track coach noticed Joyner at UCLA as she excelled in basketball, and worked on her long jump. Her abilities stunned him, but he felt that she was not using her full potential. He received special permission to coach her, and Joyner set college heptathlon records in 1982 and 1983.
She and her brother, Al, were both chosen to compete in the 1983 world track and field championships in Helsinki, Finland. There, Joyner experienced her first injury-a pulled hamstring-and was unable to compete.
A year later, she qualified for the 1984 Olympics, and arrived at the Los Angeles stadium with another hamstring injury. Despite that, she earned a silver medal and tied with Glynnis Nunn of Australia. Her brother, who won a gold medal, ran beside her on the final leg of the 800-meter run, urging her on. She came within six-tenths of a second of winning the gold medal. It was the first time in Olympic history that a sister and brother won medals on the same day and the first time an American woman medaled in any multiple event.
In 1986, Joyner married her coach, Bob Kersee, her best friend, fan, and critic. With his help, her training changed to avoid hamstring pulls, but in the end, the leg-muscle problem would be her undoing. Kersee was a formidable presence at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, but she told the 300 Rochester listeners that her hamstring problems were much worse than they seemed on television.
"In 1996, I was praying that I was the athlete I was in 1984 so that leg could hold up," she said. "But I also knew things happen for a reason. When I went to the line in Atlanta, I honestly felt like the leg was going to hold if I gave my best shot. So all I thought about was just winning. I attacked each hurdle like my leg was healthy. And I said, 'If it's going to fall off, it's just going to fall off. This is it! This is the ultimate.' I blessed those hurdles, and everything was going fine. Then at number seven-I think because of the inconsistency of high intensity training-the leg was just fatigued, and it grabbed. But, I finished the race."
She held the same optimism about the high jump. "I thought I could still win," she said. "As I was warming up, my leg was just grabbing. It finally dawned on me that winning any medal in the heptathalon-it was not going to happen. ... Later we did everything to the leg- over and over - all day and all night - ultrasound, ice, cross-fiber, wrapping the leg. The leg just wouldn't relax.
"On my first approach, I did not do as well as I wanted. I was talking to myself, saying, 'C'mon Jackie, you can do it! I visualized my run and my landing, and I knew in my heart I had the bronze medal." In the end, she said, "It all came down to the physical versus the mental. I never allow the negative energy to get in my heart."
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