A Kind of Grace

by Jackie Joyner-Kersee

  “Oh, no. Mary would have a fit if you and Alfrederick didn't go back to college,” Della said when I told her what we were thinking. She sat us down on the sofa in her living room and looked us straight in the eyes. “I know it will be hard. But you just have to get through it. The last thing Mary would want is for you all to quit school.”

  Della invited Angie and Debra to live with her while they finished high school. We learned that Momma had taken out a life insurance policy on herself and named me beneficiary. I don't know for sure, but I suspect she purchased the policy with the money she made me give her from my earnings that summer I worked at the movie theater. The policy proceeds only added up to about $12,000. But the sum was enough to support my sisters through graduation, with some left over for Al and me. It was just like Momma to make sure we were protected in case something happened to her. Our welfare was always her first concern. Knowing that she left the money to me made me realize how much confidence she had in me.

  She saw in me the possibility to have the things she missed because she got pregnant as a teenager and had to drop out of school to raise her family. I always felt I was living not only my dreams for success, but hers as well. Dreams that she wasn't able to realize. Dreams of going to college and finding a better life in the world beyond East St. Louis. I considered that money a message from Momma that she was relying on me to make sure those dreams didn't die with her.

  As I packed my bags to return to UCLA, I was a jumble of emotions. I wanted to be strong and self-reliant. But I wasn't. Though I had the love and support of Della, Marcella, Joyce and my brother and sisters, and though I carried Momma's spirit and energy around in my heart, I felt terribly insecure. I felt like a motherless child.

  12

  Mourning

  I bravely tried to pick up where I'd left off at UCLA. I rejoined the basketball team and threw myself into classes, practice and our games.

  I'd missed only one game, a loss to Louisiana Tech, while I was at home. Coach Moore was sympathetic and supportive throughout the ordeal. At one point during my mother's funeral, I looked around the church and to my surprise, there was Coach sitting in one of the pews. She'd flown all the way from California. I never guessed a college coach would take the time to do that for an athlete, especially in the middle of the season. I hugged her and thanked her when she came over to express her sympathy.

  Later, I called her to discuss my plans. Although I was a starter on the team, she advised me to withdraw from school and take the semester off to grieve and heal. “The team needs you and will miss your contribution,” she said. “But I think the best thing for you would be to take some time off. We'll keep a spot open for you next season.”

  Although I decided to return to UCLA and finish my freshman year, it meant a lot to know that she was willing to put my welfare ahead of her own needs. It took a week or two for me to get back in the groove. I didn't start the first game back, against Delta State. It was just as well. During the short time I was on the court I wasn't very effective. I didn't score a single point, though I managed to get three rebounds. The team performed just fine without me and we won easily, 90–65.

  Necie Thompson, who played center and power forward and was a freshman like me, tried to bolster my spirits. She dragged me along on shopping trips and to the movies. Necie was from Cerritos, a community just south of Los Angeles. On weekends, we drove to her house and spent time with her family. The house was always filled with laughter and the aroma of food cooking. The Thompsons made me feel welcome, like a part of the family. It was nice to experience that kinship so far from my own home and family, especially after Momma died. I went to church and ate dinner with the Thompsons before going back to the dorm on Sunday evenings. When it was time to leave, Mrs. Thompson wouldn't let me out of the house unless I accepted a loaf of banana bread, warm from her oven, wrapped in aluminum foil. She didn't have to twist my arm.

  I couldn't eat too much of it on Sunday night, because Coach Moore conducted a team weigh-in every Monday. Except for one time in high school when I had to lose a few pounds to get ready for track season, I've always been able to control my weight.

  But Coach Moore's hard-nosed philosophy kept even me on my toes. A disciplinarian and a fanatic about conditioning, she said weight control had to be a team effort because basketball is a team sport. So, even though I didn't have a weight problem, I was treated like someone who did because some of my teammates were overweight.

  Every Monday afternoon before practice, we stood in line in our practice uniforms, barefoot and anxious. The heaviest girls stripped down to their underwear to be as light as possible. One by one, we stepped up to the scale. It was so tense in that room during weigh-ins, you'd have thought the scale was a guillotine. The weekly ritual never failed to be foreboding. While an assistant adjusted the scale, Coach Moore stood in the background, expressionless. She peered over our shoulders at the numbers and recorded them on the sheet attached to her clipboard. After the last girl stepped off the scale, we stood around, fidgeting while she silently added up the total and compared it to her targets. It was like being on trial for murder and waiting to hear the jury's verdict. For each pound we were overweight as a team, we had to run a minute after practice.

  Our worst nightmare came true one day during freshman year. Coach Moore finished her calculations and looked around the room. “This is terrible! You're thirty pounds over. After practice, it's suicides for thirty minutes,” she said, pointing to the door. “Everybody out on the court!”

  Coach was furious. We were miserable. We knew practice would be a back-breaker and the running would kill us. Just as we feared, she treated us with disgust during practice. It turned out to be more of a scrimmage than a practice. She drilled us on offense and defense from one end to the other, back and forth. First we played offense, then hustled back on defense. By the end of the session, I felt as spent as if I'd played the first half of a competitive game. I looked it, too. My jersey was drenched. But the fun had just begun. Now we had thirty minutes of suicide drills.

  They're called suicides for a reason. Half the team lined up shoulder-to-shoulder on one end of the court under the basket, while the other half did the same on the other end. In the drill, we ran from the end of the court to the center line, then back to the end, then up to the three-quarter line, then back to the end. Next time, we ran the full length before returning to the end. We had only thirty seconds to complete a cycle and we had to repeat them continuously, without a break, for thirty minutes.

  It was a miserable experience, even when you were in top condition. That day, my lungs and stomach started burning after about ten minutes. I couldn't get enough oxygen, no matter how much I panted. My legs felt like lead and began to sting at the joints. My sides ached. My whole body became as hot as if I were running inside a 100-degree oven. Sweat dripped from every pore, into my eyes and ears and down my neck, back, arms and legs. I felt as if I were ready to collapse. And at that point I wasn't even halfway done.

  Coach Moore's words were muffled by the sound of my own labored breathing and the groaning all around me. One girl threw up. After cleaning herself up, she got back in line, knowing she'd have to make up the drills she missed at the end. The rest of us kept going despite the pain and waves of nausea. Each time we slowed down and exceeded the time limit, Coach Moore added on more time.

  When it was finally over, we instinctively stooped over and grabbed our knees. Then we dropped to the gym floor, our bodies heaving furiously. Once our breathing returned to normal, we picked ourselves up and dragged our bodies off to the locker room showers.

  Coach Moore wasn't always the implacable drill sergeant, though. She checked in with me periodically after practice, offering a heartfelt “How's it going?” or “Everything okay?” and a comforting smile. One day, after I'd been back for several weeks, she called me into her office and I saw her wearing a look of concern. “I'm glad to have you back, don't get me wrong,” she said. “But I'm worri
ed about you. I didn't see you cry at the funeral and I haven't seen you cry since you've been back. When something like this happens, a shocking, traumatic event, you have to unload the grief in order to put it behind you. That's why I thought you needed to take some time off.”

  “I'm fine. Everything's okay,” I said quickly, hoping to bring a fast end to the conversation. Coach Moore didn't look convinced. But thankfully, she didn't press the issue.

  “Okay, fine, if you say so. But if you ever need to talk about anything, I'm here.”

  I thanked her and left. Della, Joyce and Marcella had said much the same thing to me about letting everything out. They called once a week, as did my mother's brother, Uncle John, who also sent me money a couple of times during the semester. Everyone wanted to know how I was feeling, whether I needed anything, whether I wanted to talk about anything. They tried and tried to get me to open up. But I wouldn't do it. I couldn't.

  Shortly after my mother's death, while I was still at home, I had horrifying nightmares about her. Every night for about a week, I woke up in the middle of the night and saw her walking toward me. The visions terrified me so much I couldn't get back to sleep. It got to the point where I was afraid to go to bed. I stayed up late one night and talked to Marcella about it.

  “You probably are seeing Mary,” she said. “But you shouldn't be afraid of her. She loved you; she wouldn't hurt you. She probably just wants to say good-bye.”

  After that conversation, I stopped having nightmares. But my lonely agony didn't end. I'd never allowed myself to express my profound sadness over my mother's death. From the moment I said good-bye to her that day at the hospital and walked out of her room, through her funeral and burial, I shut down emotionally. I blocked out as much of that awful day at the hospital as I could. For years I didn't know the exact date she died. I never cared to know, because I didn't want to focus on her death. Even now, I carry some of the sorrow with me. The mere thought of her death still brings tears to my eyes.

  With so many people falling apart around me, I had to be strong for everyone else and to lend them my shoulder. My sisters especially needed me for that. At one point during the funeral, Angie got up and ran screaming out of the church. She ran all the way to our house on Piggott Avenue and refused to leave.

  The wound Momma's death left was still raw when I returned to UCLA. But no matter how much it ached, I just couldn't let myself dwell on it. The thought of letting my guard down and confronting those emotions scared me. Yet I could feel an ocean of sorrow welling up inside me. It weighed on me more and more, day after day. I was still in deep mourning.

  I tried to keep the feelings dammed. If I let even one drop seep out, I knew the gates would burst and I wouldn't be able to stop the flood of tears and pain. I was afraid it would drown me. I kept my feelings pent up for the entire spring semester and during the summer back at home. But I couldn't block out the pain forever.

  Back at school for my sophomore year, toward the end of the quarter in December, I was sitting at the pregame meal in a restaurant with my teammates. We were playing a game on the road, our last one before Christmas. The conversation turned to what everyone was getting and giving as presents. One girl started talking about the presents she was giving her parents. She was laughing and smiling. Everyone was happy. But a wave of sorrow surged through me. I realized I didn't have a mother to buy presents for anymore and that there would be no more Christmases with her.

  Before I could catch myself, tears filled my eyes. My throat tightened. My heart actually hurt. The sadness just overwhelmed me. I began to sob and moan out loud. There was no use trying to fight back the tears, they were pouring out of me. My whole body was shaking. I couldn't get myself to stop crying. My teammates all jumped up and rushed to comfort me. I continued to sob for several minutes, my face buried in my hands.

  I was finally crying over Momma. All of the talk about the holidays and parents had been the trigger. I remembered how just a year ago I'd wanted to be with her for the holidays but money and geography kept us apart. Now, a year later, I couldn't be with her because she was gone. The longing and sense of loss finally became unbearable.

  Coach Moore and Necie led me into the bathroom. Coach Moore said she was relieved. She'd been waiting for me to break down for almost a year. Now that I had faced my grief and given in to it, I felt like my burden had been lifted. I was finally ready to move on.

  13

  College Life

  Although I excelled in two sports at UCLA, I didn't have any trouble juggling academics and athletics. I took my classwork seriously and achieved my goal of completing my education, graduating with a degree in history in 1986, after taking the 1983–84 academic year off to train for the Olympics.

  I went to class until about 2:30 every day. Then I headed to study hall, where I received tutoring at a room inside the athletic complex. I preferred individual tutoring to the group sessions. As far as I was concerned, the group meetings were a waste of time. The other athletes who participated talked and made wisecracks. I got much more accomplished in one-on-one sessions.

  The basketball team practiced every afternoon from 4:00 to 6:30. Following practice and dinner, I returned to mandatory study hall from 7:30 to 9:30. I also spent Saturday mornings in the library studying, even on mornings before our games.

  Attending lecture classes at UCLA was like going to the movies or a play. They were conducted in auditoriums that held 300 people. The first time I went to one as a freshman—it was either a history or political science class—and saw so many people, I thought I'd taken a wrong turn. Lincoln High had over 1,000 students, but there weren't more than forty people in any one class at a time. And I knew all my classmates and teachers. At UCLA that was impossible. It was completely anonymous and impersonal. Not that it really mattered. No one took attendance in those big lectures, or called on us in classes. The professors talked. We took notes. That was the drill. On exam sheets we printed our names, but the most significant item, besides our answers, was our student identification numbers. The ID number was the only way to find my test score when the pages full of numbers were posted outside the professor's door.

  I didn't mind being just another number. I really didn't want the teachers to know too much about me. My older teammates warned me not to advertise the fact that I was an athlete. Don't wear your sweats to class, they told me. And whatever you do, they said, don't tell the teaching assistants—who met with small groups of students twice a week to review in detail the topics covered in lectures—that you're a basketball player. My teammates said some teachers resented athletes and gave them a harder time in class because they expected us to be lazy dummies looking for special treatment and passing grades.

  Their warnings scared me so much, I was jittery in my classes the first couple of weeks. I sat there in my jeans and logo-less shirts and sweaters, trying to be inconspicuous, furiously taking down every word the professor said. My teammates had also scared me into studying hard. That's one reason I spent so much time in the library and with the tutors. Coach Moore scheduled most of the games requiring extended travel on holidays and quarter breaks so that we didn't miss much class. Still, with daily practices and games twice a week, I wanted to stay on top of my studies and not get behind. Above all, I didn't want to flunk out of school and have to go back home and face those people who told me I couldn't make it at UCLA.

  As time went on during freshman year, it was harder to maintain my anonymity. Even though I was a first-year player, I was a starter and I played very well. After the Delta State game, I got back into the groove. I played my best games of the season over the next month. Against San Diego State, I scored 15 points and had 8 rebounds; I piled up 14 points and 7 rebounds in the game with Arizona, and collected 18 points and 7 rebounds when we played Arizona State. Increasingly, my name was mentioned and my picture appeared in stories about the women's team in the campus paper, the Daily Bruin. Also, six of our games during the season were doubleheaders
with the men's team. We played first, and their games followed. Attendance for our games was higher than usual on those occasions, and more students saw me. I was a Freshman All-America in basketball and received the All-University Athlete Award, given to UCLA's top all-around athlete, as a sophomore in 1982 and as a junior in 1983. Upon returning to campus for the 1984–85 school term to finish my degree requirements after the Olympics, I was voted All-University Athlete for a third time and won the Broderick Cup as the nation's best female collegiate athlete. With all of that publicity, more and more people recognized me. But I didn't suffer because of it. Quite the contrary. During those years, as I walked from one building to another or when I entered a classroom, a few students said, “Nice game,” “Congratulations,” or “Hi, Jackie.”

  Despite what my teammates told me, I didn't think being recognized was so bad. No one said a negative word to me—at least not to my face. And I didn't feel that teachers singled me out or treated me any differently in class. I had great relationships with many of my history and speech professors. I earned As, Bs and a few Cs and graduated with a B average.

  It was shaping up as an exciting time to be a basketball player at UCLA. The women's team was young and strong and we expected to be one of the best teams in the country for the next four years. We ended my freshman year with a 29–7 record that put us second in the Western Collegiate Athletic Conference, just one game behind Cal State–Long Beach. In the post-season national women's collegiate tournament, we surprised everyone by coming within a game of making the Final Four.

  The men's team had gone to the Final Four the season before I got there and lost in the final game to Louisville. People were expecting great things from the team and coach Larry Brown in the coming years. (The team's name was subsequently deleted from the official tournament record for that year because several players were involved in NCAA rules violations.)