World Class Effort

With Olympic determination, JACKIE JOYNER-KERSEE helps the children of East St. Louis

by Scott Murray

The year was 1984. The Summer Olympic Games were stateside in Los Angeles, four years after the United States had boycotted 1980 games in Moscow. But now, new American heroes were about to be born – heroes like goldmedal gymnasts Mary Lou Retton and Bart Conner and track and field darlings like Jackie Joyner-Kersee.

“When I was in sixth grade, a man came to talk to my class and told us we had an opportunity to do something with our lives and to take advantage of everything your teacher might say to you,” says Joyner-Kersee. “’Always do your best and give your best.’” Good words to learn from and great words to live by.

Born in 1962, she was named after First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy. But her life was anything but a Camelot existence.

Instead, Jackie Joyner was born into poverty and despair, and forced to overcome tragedy and hardship, disease and discrimination.

Fortunately, her lack of material wealth was far outweighed by an abundance of love that would set the tone for the woman she would become. “I knew at the age of nine I wanted to do something, and there were people around who wanted to help me,” says Joyner-Kersee. “When we went to high school track meets and we would all stop on the bus at a restaurant to get something to eat, I’d always wait on the bus.

But people would still push me to go inside and get something, even though I told them I wasn’t hungry. They knew I didn’t have any money to buy anything, but they always stayed by my side and took care of me.”

And, today, she’s doing much the same for others with the building of the Jackie Joyner-Kersee Youth Center in East St. Louis (Illinois), raising twelve million dollars to help the young people in her neighborhood. “When I was eighteen, I realized my mission in life was to help people,” says Joyner- Kersee. “I wanted to build a rec center to help fulfill that dream of helping people. And, even though I won silver and gold medals and was on a world stage, my true goal was to help people and build that community center for kids in need like the ones I grew up with. I want people to know this is an educational and recreational facility for young people. It’s not a sports center. I want it to be a wellness center and safe haven for our children.”

The Jackie Joyner-Kersee Foundation’s mission statement brings focus to everyone who enters the Youth Center.

Jackie Joyner-Kersee was always athletic. She came from a family of great competitors. Her father was both a hurdler and a football player. Her brother, Al, was an Olympic athlete, as was Al’s wife, the late Florence Griffith Joyner. Jackie won the first of four consecutive National Junior Pentathlon Championships at the age of fourteen, played high school volleyball, and received a basketball scholarship to UCLA, where she earned All-America honors as a four-year starter.

Tragedy struck in her freshman year when Jackie’s mother died at the young age of thirty-seven. Jackie’s best friend and biggest fan was gone. When she returned to school, she was befriended by her assistant track coach, Bob Kersee, who had endured a similar loss. The two became great friends, and, eventually, man and wife. Bob saw the great talent within her and pushed Joyner-Kersee hard to reach her full potential.

Jackie Joyner-Kersee addressed the audience at the 15th Annual Winning in Life Motivational Program, a two-day event in which world-class athletes share their life experiences from both on and off the field.

Scheduled to graduate in 1984, Joyner-Kersee first took a year off to train to become an Olympic athlete. She promised the school she would return to get her degree, and she did. And in spite of her athletic achievements, it is graduating from college that Jackie is most proud of. “To be from East St. Louis, Illinois and have the chance to go to UCLA,” Joyner-Kersee says. “Nobody thought I would come back to school. But I went to UCLA to get my degree. I didn’t know that I would end up competing in four Olympic Games.” But she did.

The L.A Games were her first stop. There, Joyner-Kersee won silver in the heptathlon – a two-day competition comprising the 100-meter hurdles, shot put, high jump and 200- meter race on day one, followed by the javelin, long jump, and 800-meter race on day two. In the years that followed, she competed in three more Olympics (Seoul, Barcelona and Atlanta), dominating women’s track and field and setting a record of 7,291 points in the heptathlon that still stands. With these accomplishments, she became the most decorated woman in track and field history and all-time greatest heptathlete.

According to 1976 Olympic decathlon champion Bruce Jenner, “She’s the greatest multi-event athlete ever, man or woman.” In 1988, she became the first woman to win The Sporting News Man of the Year Award. Jackie Joyner Kersee’s athletic dominance would give way to philanthropic dedication. For the last decade, through the community center that bears her name, she has worked tirelessly to make life better for those who are growing up in her old neighborhood. The Jackie Joyner-Kersee Youth Center is a 41,000-square-foot building that sits on 37 acres in East St. Louis. It is surrounded by baseball and football fields, and indoor track and aquatic facilities are planned.

LEFT: Jackie Joyner-Kersee is joined by Jackie Joyner-Kersee Foundation Executive Director Lecia Rives (left) and Della Gray, the Foundation’s Finance Assistant. ABOVE: The Jackie Joyner-Kersee Boys & Girls Club is housed in the multi-functional Jackie Joyner-Kersee Center BELOW LEFT: Youth use the state-of-the-art computer lab to learn the skills needed to create new opportunities for their future. BELOW RIGHT: State-of-the-art fitness equipment is available for members at the Jackie Joyner-Kersee Center.

“We have celebrated our sixth year. One of the great stories to come out of these walls involves a little girl who came to me and said how much she liked the community center. Because of the help she had received, she was going to be the first one in her family to graduate from high school,” says Joyner-Kersee with pride. “Another young man who was our youth of the year is happy to be at the community center because it has taught him to be a role model for his two younger brothers. One of his older brothers is in prison, and another one has been killed. Most of the children look upon the center as a fun place, but, just as important, as a safe place where they can come and be appreciated for who they are. We teach them about character-building, integrity, and honesty.

People did that for me, and I’m grateful I can do it for somebody else. It’s always been my theory that if you let kids think they are good and needed, they will have hope and will be able to make something of themselves.”

“The ultimate for an athlete is to stand on that Olympic podium,” smiles Joyner-Kersee. “But in the athletic arena, success is temporary. Beyond that, it is more important that I fulfill all my goals. To people on the outside I probably look very successful, but I know there is still a lot of work to be done.” And with the determination of an Olympic athlete, she is getting it done.

For more information, please visit www.jjkfoundation.org.

	TOP LEFT: Two of her fans get Jackie’s autograph at the 2006 Winning in Life Motivational Progarm. MIDDLE LEFT: Scholarship Winners La Toya Young and Brittany Williams share the Gold Medal Scholarship wall with previous winners Jennene Anthony and Ashley Harris. BOTTOM LEFT: The Founder’s Day Celebration at the Jackie Joyner-Kersee Center in East St. Louis honored Jackie and her record-setting heptathlon accomplishments. BELOW: Jackie Joyner-Kersee celebrates the sixth year of the opening of the Jackie Joyner-Kersee Center with some of the youth who take advantage of the center’s facilities.