A Kind of Grace by Jackie Joyner-Kersee Page A

from my hometown all sat together in a clump, surrounded by the 5,000 other spectators.
    When the long-jump competition began and I stepped up to the line, the crowd was buzzing. “Aw, she's gonna do it, you watch,” someone shouted. “Here she goes!” someone else yelled out as he pointed to me on the field. Then I heard the familiar, “Jaaaaaaaackieeeeeeee!”
    I got the signal and I took off. I pumped as hard as I could, running faster, faster, faster, down the runway. I took the last three steps, slammed my right foot down on the board and leaped. As I extended my arms and legs through the air, I knew I'd popped a big one. I'd never been in the air so long. I was floating. I came down in the dry, undisturbed part of the sand pit, far down from the section they'd raked and watered after everyone else's jumps.
    In unison the crowd roared. Everyone was standing as I landed. I got up, looked back at the pit to see how far down I was and stepped out. I smiled and dusted myself off. The whole place was buzzing again, in anticipation.
    “She got it! She got it,” said a man who was not my father.
    The officials were still measuring as I walked back to our camp and put on my sweatpants. I'd set a state record in the qualifying round with a jump of 19′ 9¼″. And though I'd never experienced a 20-foot leap, this one felt like it was way past 20. I'd never landed that far down the pit before.
    When they raised the three standards—one at a time—to show my mark and the first number was a 2, the crowd exploded. I'd set a new record. The only mystery was how far I'd gone. Next came a 0, then a 7½. It was 20′ 7½″. The moment was as electric as the instant the 0.00 flashed on the scoreboard in Montreal during the 1976 Olympic gymnastics competition, signifying that Nadia Comaneci had received a perfect score on the uneven parallel bars. People who were there still talk about that afternoon at Eastern Illinois University in Charleston and the feeling they got watching that jump and seeing the numbers.
    “Jaaaaaaaackieeeeeeee! That's my girl! Jaaaaaaaackieeeeeeee!” Daddy was beside himself.
    I smiled modestly, raised my hand as far as my forehead, and gave a little wave in the direction of the stadium.
    With that leap, I became one of the best long jumpers in the nation in both the junior and senior divisions. It was the best jump in Illinois by a high school girl and the second longest among female junior-division competitors in the country that year. I ranked eighth among all female long jumpers in the nation at the end of that year. For the second consecutive year, I was named the Illinois Girl Athlete of the Year by the
St. Louis Globe-Democrat.
I was also named a Prep All-America by
Illinois Track & Field News.
I repeated as the Girl Athlete of the Year the following season, and as a Prep All-America.
    I thought I'd reached the height of celebrity in November 1979 when a big picture of me long jumping during the AAU Junior Olympics appeared on the cover of
Women's Varsity Sports
magazine. When I saw my picture, all I could do was grin. I couldn't believe it was me on the cover of a magazine.
    With two state track championship trophies already in the case at school, I returned to Lincoln the following fall with one goal—winning the state basketball championship and adding that trophy to the case. It was senior year, the last chance for Deborah Thurston, Barbara Gilmore, Devlin Stamps and me to make history by being the first squad to win a girls' basketball title at Lincoln, and to see all our work during the previous years pay off.
    We'd gotten close enough to taste it the year before, losing the championship game to Skokie-Niles West. As the team's cocaptain, I took it upon myself to keep everyone focused and motivated. Whenever our enthusiasm or energy level sagged in practice, I yelled out to my teammates, “Remember how it felt to lose in the finals and to watch that other team get the championship trophy,