Jackie Joyner-Kersee

Jacqueline Joyner was born March 3, 1962, in East St. Louis, Illinois, and was named after Jacqueline Kennedy, the First Lady of the United States. She was inspired to compete in multi-disciplinary track & field events after seeing a movie about Babe Didrikson Zaharias. Didrikson, the track star, basketball player, and pro golfer, was chosen the "Greatest Female Athlete of the First Half of the 20th Century. Fifteen years later, Sports Illustrated for Women magazine voted Joyner-Kersee the greatest female athlete of all time, just ahead of Zaharias. UCLA Joyner attended college at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) from 1980 to 1985 where she starred in both track & field and basketball. She attended the school on an athletic scholarship. While she was in college, her mother died suddenly of meningitis. Joyner's coach, Bob Kersee, helped Joyner grieve the loss of her mother. After she graduated, the two got married. In basketball, she was a starter at forward for each of her first three seasons (1980–81, 81–82, and 82–83) as well as in her senior (fifth) year, 1984–1985. She redshirted during the 1983–84 academic year to concentrate on the heptathlon for the 1984 Summer Olympics. She scored 1,167 points during her collegiate career, placing her 19th all time for the Bruins games. The Bruins advanced to the West Regional semifinals of the 1985 NCAA Division I Women's Basketball Tournament before losing to eventual runner-up Georgia. In April 2001, Joyner-Kersee was voted the "Top Woman Collegiate Athlete of the Past 25 Years." The vote was conducted among the 976 NCAA member schools. In track, Joyner won the Broderick Award (now the Honda Sports Award) as the nation's best female collegiate track and field competitor in 1983 and in 1985, and was awarded the Honda-Broderick Cup, given to the nation's best female collegiate athlete in 1985. UCLA statistics Source ==Competition==

1984 Summer Olympics Joyner competed in the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles and won the silver medal in the heptathlon. She was the favorite heading into the event, but finished five points behind Australian athlete Glynis Nunn. She also placed fifth in the long jump. she entered the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, Korea and earned gold medals in both the heptathlon and the long jump. At the Games, she set the still-standing heptathlon world record of 7,291 points. Five days later, Joyner-Kersee won her second gold medal, leaping to an Olympic record of in the long jump. This continued the following season in 1989 when Darrell Robinson accused Joyner-Kersee's husband and coach, Bobby Kersee, of distributing performance-enhancing drugs. Years later, doping insider Victor Conte asserted that in 1988 he personally witnessed an Olympic official at the Seoul games notifying Bobby Kersee that Joyner-Kersee had tested positive for PED use. Joyner-Kersee has consistently maintained that she competed throughout her career without performance-enhancing drugs. 1991 World Championships During the long jump event at the 1991 World Championships, having already won with a jump, Joyner-Kersee slipped on the take-off board and careened headfirst into the pit. She strained a hamstring and subsequently pulled out of the heptathlon during the 200 m at the end of the first day. 1992 Summer Olympics In the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, Spain, Joyner-Kersee earned her second Olympic gold medal in the heptathlon. She also won the bronze medal in the long jump which was won by her friend Heike Drechsler of Germany. She was able to recover to compete in the long jump; her final jump of was vaulted into the bronze medal position. Professional basketball career In 1996 Joyner-Kersee signed to play pro basketball for the Richmond Rage of the fledgling American Basketball League. She appeared in 17 games, with a high of 15 points scored. ==Post-athletic career==

Joyner-Kersee is a philanthropist in children's education, racial equality and women's rights. She is a founder of the Jackie Joyner-Kersee Foundation, which encourages young people in East St. Louis to pursue athletics and academics. In 2007, Joyner-Kersee was one of the co-founders of Athletes for Hope, a charitable organization that helps professional athletes get involved in charitable causes and inspires millions of non-athletes to volunteer and support the community. She served on the board of directors for USA Track & Field the national governing body of the sport. ==Awards and honors==

• 1983 Broderick Award (now Honda Sports Award) • 1985 Broderick Award (now Honda Sports Award) • 1987 Jesse Owens Award • 1988 Missouri Athletic Club Jack Buck Awards: Sports Personality of the Year Award and Carl O. Bauer Award • 1992 George Thomas "Mickey" Leland Award from the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation • World Athletics Awards :: World Athlete of the Year (Women): 1994 • 1997 Jack Kelly Fair Play Award • 2000 St. Louis Walk of Fame inductee • 2005 was inducted as a Laureate of The Lincoln Academy of Illinois and awarded the Order of Lincoln (the State's highest honor) by the Governor of Illinois in the area of Sports • 2010 NCAA Silver Anniversary Awards honoree • 2011 Dick Enberg Award, College Sports Information Director of America (CoSIDA) • 2021 Webster University Doctor of Humane Letters Since 1981, the Jesse Owens Award has been given by USATF (and before its renaming, TAC) to the United States' track and field athlete of the year. In 1996, the award was split to be given to the top athlete of each gender. In 2013, the female award was renamed the Jackie Joyner-Kersee Award. In March 2023, she was inducted into the International Sports Hall of Fame. ==Current world records==

Joyner-Kersee holds the world record in heptathlon along with the top six all-time best results. Her long jump record of 7.49 m is second on the long jump all-time list. == Personal bests ==

;Personal bests : • 100 metres hurdles : 12.61 s • Long jump : 7.49 m (still currently #2 all time, 3 cm behind the world record and she did it twice) • High jump : 1.93 m • 200 m : 22.30 s • Shot put : 16.84 m • Javelin throw : 50.12 m • 800 m : 2 min 8.51 == Women in Sports ==

In an interview with Atlanta Journal and Constitution Joyner reflected on how women's sports have changed over the years. She stated that her high school basketball team would often have to practice late at night because the courts were reserved for the men's basketball team. Joyner noted that now women have their own leagues to play in and female athletes are paid more, not more than men though. Women's sports have become more popular over the years and have gained more attention and fan commitment. Sports like volleyball and softball are popular among female high school athletes. In the interview Joyner noted that more women are becoming involved with the business side of sports, and she herself is a registered sports agent and owns a sports marketing firm. ==TV appearances==

In 2000, Joyner-Kersee played herself in an episode of The Jersey called "Legacy" where Nick Lighter (played by Michael Galeota) uses a magical jersey by jumping into her body as he is coached by her husband (Bob Kersee as himself) on how to put the shot for a track and field competition. In 2023, Joyner-Kersee appeared on the PBS program Groundbreakers, hosted by Billie Jean King. She and other female athletes had one-on-one discussions about accomplishments in women's sports. ==Personal life==

Jackie's brother is Olympic champion triple jumper Al Joyner, who was married to Olympic track champion Florence Griffith Joyner. Jackie married her track coach, Bob Kersee, in 1986. Joyner-Kersee suffered from severe asthma throughout her athletic career. Joyner-Kersee is an honorary member of Delta Sigma Theta sorority. ==References==