A Kind of Grace (23 page)
When the leg was stronger, I resumed my training, but I had lost my enthusiasm and determination. I sulked around the track feeling sorry for myself. Even the news that the Eastern Bloc countries were boycotting the Los Angeles Games—in retaliation for President Carter's decision to keep the American team out of the 1980 Moscow Olympics—depressed me. With the East Germans out of the competition, I knew the heptathlon gold medal would be up for grabs. Everyone else on the track was ecstatic because it meant their chances for winning were even better. No one viewed the Games as being tainted or insignificant because of the Communist Bloc boycott. Let the pundits have fun with their asterisks and their debate about the significance of the performances. To us, an Olympic gold medal would still be a gold medal. Because I wasn't healthy, I figured I'd miss my golden opportunity. Nothing seemed to be going my way.
I just wasn't myself. Usually I'm Jackie the Joker, the lighthearted, upbeat person who keeps smiling no matter what, giving pep talks and trying to cheer everyone up. Now, everyone was trying to raise my confidence and encourage me. Day after day, every time they massaged the leg, Bob Forster, the physical therapist, and Bobby kept telling me that the leg was getting stronger. But I couldn't climb out of my funk.
Compounding my worries were the performances being turned in by an Australian heptathlete I'd read about in the months and weeks leading up to the Games. Her name was Glynis Nunn.
I wasn't sure if she was a heptathlete, but the fact that she was competing in the sprint hurdles and jumping events aroused my suspicions. And the fact that her times, heights and distances were improving got my attention. Nunn and several Australian athletes had moved to the U.S. to get acclimated to conditions here in preparation for the Games. I knew from the numbers she was posting that she could be a threat. She was high jumping in the 5′ 6″ to 5′ 8″ range, only four to five inches less than my personal best of 6 feet.
In those days I read the magazines and newspapers closely each month to keep track of how other multi-eventers were performing. I wanted to know who was out there who might be a potential threat. It helped my preparation, gave me targets to shoot for. After reading about Glynis, I knew if I wanted to win the high jump, I'd have to clear 5′ 9″ or better because there was a girl out there who was capable of jumping 5′ 8″.
It drove Bobby crazy every time I brought up her name. He was worried I was psyching myself out. “Bobby, she's jumping 5′ 6″, 5′ 7″ and 5′ 8″,” I'd say. “I think she's really good.”
“Why are you so preoccupied with this woman?” he asked, agitated. “The key to your success is you, not Glynis Nunn or whatever her name is.”
His worry, it turned out, was well founded. I couldn't get her out of my mind. I was constantly talking about her and thinking about her, worrying she'd exploit the advantage my injury presented. And Bobby was thoroughly frustrated with me. He tried to brainwash me into thinking positively, constantly telling me the leg was healed and that there was nothing wrong with it. And he begged me to stop reading the sports pages. But I can be pretty stubborn when I want to and for some inexplicable reason, I just wouldn't budge from my defeatist attitude.
The truth is, I was physically ready. But not mentally. And because of that, I kept telling myself that I wasn't ready physically. I was a limping self-fulfilling prophecy. It was really a case of mind over matter. The leg was getting healthy, based on the way I was running. But because I was so afraid of reinjuring it and so consumed by negative thoughts, I wouldn't let myself believe it.
Everybody, from Bobby to Al to Valerie Brisco, kept telling me I could do it. But when I looked at the leg in the mirror—I stared at it all the time—it didn't look normal. It looked swollen, which to me meant it wasn't okay. The little voice inside my head kept telling me I shouldn't strain it and I started to believe it. Never once in the days leading up to the Games, or during the Games, did I ever consider just going out and trying to win. All I kept thinking to myself was, “I'm not going to make it. I just can't do it.”
I had no faith in myself. It was an awful feeling.
We didn't participate in the opening ceremonies, nor did we stay in the Olympic Village. The ceremonies look beautiful on TV and I regret that I've never participated. But they're also very tiring. There's so much walking and standing. In 1984, we decided it wasn't a good idea, particularly with my ailing leg.
As for the Olympic Village, it's too crowded and it's too hard getting around. We needed to be able to communicate with Bobby whenever we needed him and that was impossible if we were in the Village and he was somewhere miles away in another part of the city with no credentials to get inside. To make our lives easier during the Games, Bobby reserved a block of rooms for all eight of us at a TraveLodge.
The first event of the heptathlon is the 100-meter hurdles. I walked to the starting blocks at the Los Angeles Coliseum with my left leg wrapped in a tight, twelve-inch Ace bandage. I wasn't nervous. But I was apprehensive, afraid to go all out. After I cleared the first two hurdles with ease, I realized my leg was okay and I tried to run faster. Yet the voice in my head told me to hold back. “Don't really attack, be careful about pushing off too hard on the lead leg, you might do more damage.”
At the high-jump pit, during the shot put and the 200, I had the same fear. I used my left leg to push off on the high jump and I ran tentatively up to the bar. Maybe I thought I was giving it my all, but I wasn't. Prompted by that voice in my head, my first instinct was to protect myself. I was acting as if there was a tomorrow. But this was my one and only shot at a gold medal in 1984. There was no tomorrow.
All day long, Bobby kept bringing me bagels and water, begging me to eat something to build up my strength and to drink something to keep myself hydrated. I wouldn't take a sip or a bite. Also, during the breaks, he told me to put ice packs on my leg to keep it from tightening up. I knew I should do it. Failure to ice my leg overnight after the first day in Helsinki at the 1983 World Championships had contributed to the tightness and the pull I suffered the next day. But I ignored the advice and sat pouting in the tent.
Mr. Fennoy was in the stands, along with my father and my youngest sister, Debra. During the first day of the competition, Mr. Fennoy walked to the front row of the virtually empty Coliseum and got my attention. He bent over the wall a few feet above the track and motioned for me to come over. Because of my mood and his own preaching over the years that we should leave spectators alone and keep our focus on the track, I tried to brush him off with a wave and a half-smile. But he kept gesturing. Reluctantly, I walked toward the wall.
He read the dejection and apprehension on my face and tried to reassure me. I knew what he was trying to do. In high school, I would have hung on his every word, absorbing it like oxygen and feeding off it for the rest of the day. Not now. Leaning against the wall below him as his pep talk continued, I was only half-listening, half-lost in self-pity. “Don't shut me out,” he said. “Draw strength from me and the others here who are supporting you.”
“Okay,” I said, offering a wan smile. I walked back to the tent.
By the next day and the start of the long-jump competition, I was inconsolable. I'd lost my concentration and my form. My first two jumps were fouls. My third was fair, but I'd taken off from three inches behind the board, on my left leg—too far back and on the wrong leg. I jumped just 20′ ½″, two feet off my best.
I started crying. Bobby sat me down inside the tent and tried to calm me down. “You can't give up,” he begged me. “You've still got two more events. You have to pull yourself together.” Finally, I got the message. But there was no way to know whether it had reached me in time.
Al's triple-jump competition was starting as we walked to the javelin field. He jumped 56′ 7½″, a lifetime best, and took the early lead. I threw the javelin 146 feet and pulled closer to Glynis, who had been steady all day.
Going into the 800, we were virtually tied. I had to stay within two seconds of her to win. The problem was that because I hadn't eaten all day or consumed enough liquids, I didn't have any reserve energy at the end of the race and Glynis was charging ahead. Al, who'd passed on his fourth jump to watch the finish of the 800, ran over to the final curve and hollered, “Come on, Jackie, use your arms.” He was on the grass, running beside me down the home stretch. “Keep pumping your arms, come on, you can do it!” he screamed.
My face was a tight ball of anguish and strain. My legs were cramping and I was spent. I didn't have anything left. Nothing. I wanted to tell him, “I'm trying, Al, I'm trying to go as fast as I can.”
Glynis crossed 2.98 seconds ahead of me. It took about ten minutes for the officials to figure out what I knew as soon as I crossed the line. I'd lost the gold medal by five points.
I was completely sapped of energy. As I stood on the track several yards past the finish line, getting my breath back, the realization slowly sunk in. Bobby walked up to me, handed me a bottle of water and gave me a hug. He asked if I was okay and told me I'd done a good job, which I knew wasn't true.
Al hugged me, too, then ran back to the jumping area for his final jumps. Turning my thoughts to his competition was a relief. It diverted my attention from the bitter disappointment I felt.
Al was the decided underdog and the journalists covering track and field had ignored him since the Trials. That morning before the competition, he'd been all wound up about it on the warmup track at USC. When I asked what was wrong he went into a tirade about a report he'd seen on television. “They were talking about America's hopes in the triple jump and they said they had to rely on Mike Conley and Willie Banks and flashed their pictures on the screen,” he said. “Jackie, they didn't even mention my name!”
He was so hurt that he'd been overlooked. Ever since his starring role at our high school dances, Al has loved the spotlight. I told him to ignore it. “You just get out there and jump,” I said. “Then they'll be scrambling around trying to find out who you are. You'll have the last laugh.”
Al couldn't improve on his first effort; but neither could his competitors. He was still leading. Mike Conley came to the line for a last try. He landed 58 feet from the board, far enough to beat Al. But the line judge raised a red flag after he landed. He'd fouled. Al was the gold medalist! After the medal ceremony, we ran to each other and embraced on the field. I was in tears.
“Don't cry, Jackie,” he said. “You did great.”
“I'm not crying because I lost,” I said. “I'm crying because you won. I'm so happy. You fooled them all.”
We looked around the gigantic Coliseum, packed with people. Not even my father's voice could carry far enough to prevail in that place. So, if he uttered his familiar chants, we didn't hear them. But we knew wherever he was up there in the seats, he was overjoyed. We also knew that wherever she was up there, Momma was, too.
People crammed the streets of East St. Louis to attend the parade in our honor when we returned home. The sun was shining on the city that cloudless August day and it was reflected in the dispositions of everyone along the parade route. From our perches on the back seats of matching white convertible Mustangs, Al and I saw the thrilled faces of all of our school chums and old teammates. The motorcade crept along the streets of our neighborhood past our old haunts: Lincoln Park, the schools, our house and the place it all began for me, the Mary Brown Community Center.
Whatever doubts anyone had about my leaving town and striking out on my own in the big city had been erased. The love I felt from everyone that day was overwhelming. People waved posters and signs that read “Welcome Home Al and Jackie,” “East St. Louis Is Proud of You!” I couldn't stop smiling and laughing. It was a great day as well for East St. Louis, which hadn't celebrated anything in such a long time.
The parade wound up at City Hall, where we received the keys to the city. We also got the keys to the two Mustangs. Because I still had a year of eligibility remaining at UCLA, I had to leave the car at Joyce's and promise not to use it until after graduation. But I was staggered by the generosity. The city also pledged to build a brick house for our family about three blocks from Piggott Avenue, across the street from a park to be named after Al and me.
Baseball, Hot Dogs and a Proposal
A
t home that summer, I spent a long time staring at my silver medal dangling on the end of that red, white and blue ribbon and reflecting on my Olympic experience. My fifth-place finish in the long jump didn't bother me because I performed well and was simply beaten by the four best jumpers in the world. I wasn't even ranked internationally in the event at the time.
Pondering the heptathlon was much more upsetting. Although I had tried hard, I knew my sour attitude had doomed my chances at the Olympics. Physically, I could have won the gold medal. But my defeatist attitude kept me from believing that and going after it in the javelin, the hurdles and the long jump. An ounce more of courage could have given me the extra inch or second necessary to change the final outcome. To me, that was a tragedy larger than the five points that separated my silver medal from Glynis's gold.
I replayed in my mind that state track meet when I was a high school sophomore, where I competed despite aching shins and helped Lincoln win its first championship. I'd shown so much fearlessness and so much faith in myself, running and jumping as the pains shot up my bandaged legs. I had to find that courage again.
I held the shiny silver medal in the palm of my hand and promised myself I would work harder and use everything I'd learned from the 1984 experience to prepare for 1988. I was ready to begin the mission anew. I had made it to the Olympics and performed respectably; but I had come up short. Now, I had to prove I could meet the mental and physical challenges standing between me and the gold medal.