Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Her Foundation and Centers
JJK Represents What It Is to Be a Lifelong Champion. As Sydney McClaughlin-Levrone says: "I'm truly so grateful for her being a mentor, the encouragement and lessons she has taught me."
JJK the Athlete
Jackie Joyner-Kersee’s world-class career spans 16 years. It arises from childhood in the always hard-hit East St. Louis, Illinois. Its national stature begins with NCCA titles in the Heptathlon (that Multi-Event of seven Events) for UCLA in 1982 and 1983. She follows with a Silver Medal at age 22 in the 1984 Olympic Heptathlon. Over the next four years she sets five World Records, four of them in the Heptathlon, one in the Long Jump (7.45 meters, 1987). As a Olympian she wins the Heptathlon in 1988 and 1992 and also the Long Jump of 1988. She also wins four Golds in the World Championships of Track & Field—she’s 1st in the Long Jump of 1987 and 1991 and the Heptathlon of 1987 and 1993. She and her coach and husband, Bobby Kersee (they married in 1986), are spotlit pinnacles at the top of their sport.
TIME-cover, September 19, 1988, photo by Gregory Heisler. JJK’s Olympic Heptathlon of that year is stands as a spectacular World Record 36 years later.
JJK succeeds at the highest levels of global competition—in Los Angeles, Moscow, Rome, Seoul, Tokyo, Barcelona, and Stuttgart. Her final World Record in the Heptathlon remains 259 points higher than the total of the second leading athlete, Carolina Kluft of Sweden.
The percentage of her 7291 points above Carolina Kluft’s 7032 is 3.55%—almost double the margin of other, phenomenal World Record-Holder’s over their nearest competitors, including the still young Sydney McClaughlin-Levrone.
Sydney says of JJK in this 2022 piece by Jon Mulkeen of World Athletics: “She has truly spoken into my life over the past two years while I’ve been working with Bobby. The influence she has had on me, and the encouragement and lessons she has taught me, I’m truly so grateful for what she has done in the sport and for being a mentor.”
Also, JJK’s U.S. Record for the Long Jump, 7.49 Meters, achieved twice in 1994, is now of 30 years standing.
Greatness demands that challenges be met. We pick up Jackie’s career in the early 1990s. She has injuries that plunge her to the track. She becomes beloved for her grit as well as her grace and her smile. 1996 in Atlanta is her final Olympics. She races the Heptathlon’s first discipline, the 100 Meters Hurdles, with a bandage wrapping her right hamstring and quadricep. With two hurdles to go her hamstring twinges and grabs. Her arms go sideways with pain. She grimaces with shock and stutter-steps past the Finish, her time still 2nd overall.
She and Bobby huddle on the infield. Both wind up weeping with the decision that she must withdraw before the Heptathlon’s six more Events—High Jump, Shot Put, 200 Meters and the next day Long Jump, Javelin Throw and 800 Meters.
DVD #43 in the Criterion Collection’s invaluable set of 43 Discs that depict Summer and Winter Olympics from 1912 to 2012, Bud Greenspan’s documentary from Atlanta 1996, ‘Atlanta’s Olympic Glory’, conveys the decision with beautiful feeling.
Six days after her withdrawal from the Heptathalon, Jackie competes in the Long Jump. Her right leg is again bandaged. She struggle again and again. After three jumps she’s 6th. She fouls on jumps 4 and 5. She stretches by the pit and stuffs ice-cubes into her bandagig wrap. Jump 6 is her last Olympic effort. She “hits” it—7.0 meters exactly, 22 feet, 11 inches, good for 3rd and Bronze. Jackie calls it her most satisfying Olympic medal. She tells her coach from age 10 onward in East St. Louis, Nino Fennoy: “Well, I tried.”
The jump that won JJK her most satisfying Olympic medal.
Her international athletic career concludes in 1998 with victory in the Goodwill Games, her last Heptathlon. Her fortitude in that last 800 meters, at age 36, may serve as an eternal inspiration. We have it on tape thanks to Jim Muchmore’s YouTube channel.
Jackie after running 2:17 for her fourth Goodwill Games win in the Heptathalon, 1998, Uniondale, New York. Lewis Johnson interviews Jackie. Coach and husband Bob Kersee is congratulated after this final Heptathlon triumph.
JJK the Volunteer
"I always, from the time I was a young girl growing up in East St. Louis, knew I wanted to come back and volunteer." JJK in a 2018 profile by Chris Easterling in the Canton Repository.
In 2001 Jackie and Bobby broke ground for her Foundation in East St. Louis.
The Card below, side 2 of a downloadable PDF, shows some of the accomplishments by Jackie and her Team as funders, mentors and supporters to young people of East St. Louis.
You can see what the JJK Foundation is accomplishing.
Jackie is quoted at length in Chris Easterling’s profile, ‘Commitment to Perseverance’
"I always, from the time I was a young girl growing up in East St. Louis, knew I wanted to come back and volunteer," she said. "There were people that volunteered in my life that I didn't know was making a difference. They were setting me on the path to be the best Jackie I could be. So, when, working with coach Nino Fennoy as an age group, or a George Ward, or just different people who came into my life, it was always about direction, working hard; understanding where you want to go in life. It all helped me to create my own curriculum about being a winner in life."
A glimpse into the JJK Foundation in action when COVID Lockdowns kept families of East St. Louis from access to food—85 warm meals delivered each day!
More can be seen on the Foundation’s Facebook page.
New to 2022 is the Jackie Joyner Kersee Food, Agriculture and Innovative Nutrition Center. The University of Illinois Urbana-Champagne announced results and plans in May of this year. ‘The JJK Foundation, the University of Illinois, the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center and Lansdowne UP, an East St. Louis nonprofit, formally joined forces to create the Jackie Joyner-Kersee Food, Agriculture, Nutrition Innovation Center.’ The combination of facilities extends across 12 acres. Its projected ‘24,000 square-foot innovation center’ will expand programming and food production capacity for the JJK FAN, with a completion date of 2025. Results of the economic study indicate that the JJK FAN will add the equivalent of $7.8 million in new labor income, 126 jobs and $2.7 million in tax revenue to Illinois’ economy by 2026.’
JJK FAN (Food, Agricultue, Nutrition) is well worth a digital visit at the least. Check out what’s happening … on the literal ground!
JJK never stops giving!
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FROM OUTSIDE SUBSTACK
https://donpaulwearerev.com/flipping-the-script/young-giants-are-coming-track-field-2018
https://www.ur1light.com/brilliant-moments-track-field
https://donpaulwearerev.com/running-on-the-mountain-1
It's nice to hear some good news these days. Having been to St. Louis and the area a number of times over the decades, it is really nice to hear that JJK is doing her best to left others out of the quagmire of living in ESL. Bravo!
Thank you, EKOH. JJK is one of those: the more you know, the more you like!