The First One Through An Olympians Perspective on Pursuing the Dream
i was born on a dirt road
i learned to run through the tobacco
fields of my grandfather’s farm
church family food and fun
in that order were my priorities
i believe that my hunger to be the first
one through
came on that dirt road i was energetic
i was adventurous
and my mom working two jobs
and my stepfather stepping in
gave me an open door to pursuing
my dreams
as a child of the civil rights movement
i was born
in the late 60s in the south there were
three things that i had to push
down that i had to navigate in order
to be successful it was being black
it was being a female and it was being
an athlete
these are things that i had to
neutralize
i can hear your thoughts i can hear you
saying
what does that have to do with anything
my reality then and now
is everything in elementary school
i really believed that i had a special
gift
i thought no one else knew that
i believed that there was no limit as to
how fast i could run
i had no idea what i would do with this
gift
but at the end of every elementary
school field day
i would come home with a chest full of
blue ribbons
who knew that the beginnings of my
olympic pursuit had begun
in middle school there was a street that
ran
right down my road
and it was everyday practice for
bets to be placed and ice cream money to
be lost
on my races
the boys would line up
and before you knew it the secret was
out and they were getting
beat down
there was a middle school teacher that
walked up to me in the hallway and said
if you get a’s and b’s
you could go to college no one had ever
spoken to me about college and
so i thought about it
college
the next time i saw them
i said i want to go to college
my guiding light became
going to college if i get good grades
a’s and b’s and i run fast i
could go to college the pursuit
had begun
as a rural high school athlete
i was not prepared to go to college
in fact the first time i saw the s.a.t
was when i sat down to take it
nevertheless there were opportunities
that were opening for me
title ix had passed three years after i
was born
and so that gave me a shot and then
proposition 48 was passed that allowed
students like me with low sat scores
but high gpas a chance to get specially
admitted to universities
and so my pursuit my passion to go to
college
it came it was
challenging at times and demoralizing
to be specially admitted but i grabbed
every opportunity to pursue
my dream to go to college
and in 1987 i was given a full
scholarship to the university of
north carolina chapel hill to go
to college now
in 1984 it was the summer olympics
in los angeles man was it
hot and i sat in front of that
television
for two weeks in our little two-bedroom
trailer and i
watched and for the first time my first
time watching the olympics
and then my first time seeing myself
in the body of jackie joyner
kersey jackie would become
my friend my mentor my competitor
my teammate an olympic
and world record holder
you see jackie she connected me to my
destiny
and i wasn’t sure what was going to
happen after college but
now the pursuit of the dream had been
named
i wanted to become an olympian
so the dream culminated
at the 2000 olympic trials
but i should tell you that at this point
i had been a professional athlete
for 10 years in 1992
i had made the olympic team in the long
jump
my first time i was sixth it was great
96
96 was different i was in the top 10 in
the world in the long jump and i
missed it by three centimeters i was
devastated i didn’t leave home
for two weeks i was inconsolable
and so i decided to get up
and get on the next team so in 1997 i
made the world championship teams for
athens greece
in the warm-ups i had a problem with my
knee
so a year later they decided to do knee
surgery
and all of a sudden my plans had been
altered
not abandoned so after knee surgery they
said okay you’ll have to
stop long jumping and take a year off
so i switched back to my next favorite
event
and that was the hundred meter hurdles
switching back and forth i’d like to
share with you
is not normal olympians
do not do one event and then come back
eight years later
and do another it is kind of like
asking a sumo wrestler to then take up
skiing
and so i
even though i was an early olympian in
terms of switching events
i was able to make that feat happen
however the switch the change
threatened my mental and physical
capabilities
in terms of furthering my pursuit of my
dream
in 1999 i received my first
top 10 world ranking in the hurdles
and i was in hot pursuit
i went to the 2000 olympic trials
but i had another problem
there was a pain
well let me explain olympians
it takes more than just them to get on
the podium
my observation is that it takes about a
hundred
folks to go alongside and get an
olympian on the podium
my 100 kicked in at the 2000 olympic
trials in sacramento
california two weeks before the trials i
started having a stabbing pain
in my stomach i had an injury called
osteitis pubis
it is when you have a strength imbalance
and your
pelvic bone is trying to separate from
each other
it was so painful that with every hurdle
clearance
i felt like i was being cut in
two
i wasn’t sure what to do i know that i
did not want to go
to sacramento because going to
sacramento it
meant that i had to be perfect and i
wasn’t perfect
so my 100
it kicked in my coach arrived in
sacramento
he designed a a doctor to come and help
me with my pain
i had physical therapists i had massage
therapists i had
a yoga restorative for my stress
but the most important person he lined
up a person that i was
a little nervous trying to avoid
was my mental coach my sports
psychologist gloria
why well gloria she knew me
she knew my superwoman tendency she knew
my
perfectionist problems and she knew my
deepest
fear she said to me sharon
you have to take advantage of this
opportunity that lay before you
right now and you have to be willing to
let go
of what happened in atlanta
the intervention that ensued in the next
couple days
reminds me of this quote alexander
graham bell said it
he said when one door closes another
opens however
we often look at the door that is closed
long and regretfully
and we do not notice we do not see
when the door opens for us
well gloria opened that door for me
she sat down with me and she said sharon
you
always think you have to be perfect were
you perfect the last time you had a
personal record
i said no she said when you have a goal
you tend to be like a bull you go
right at it what if you went through
or around or over
she said who would you rather compete
against
would you rather compete against someone
um that has happened
had any problems you know or would you
rather compete
against you
i i knew that answer
like i know my name i said i’ll take her
because i’m tough to beat
and as i walked out to the track
for my first trial
i walked out there with nine injections
23 000 people in the stands 114 degrees
on the track millions and millions of
people watching my family watching
from the dirt road at home
and my hundred had done all that they
could do
for me and it was up to me to find a way
and so as i lined up for the trial i
went out
and i made it through the first one i
had to be carried back
to the stands i went
to the semifinals i was in the center of
the track i
finished second in my heat and then all
of a sudden
here we go it’s the finals
well yeah i wasn’t smiling because i got
placed in lane one
and lane one for those of you who run
track you know what i mean
but nothing was going to stop me from
walking through this door
so the gun goes off as it is going off
i’m saying to myself i’d rather be me
i’d rather be me
i dive across the line
and as i do
i look and look and i
wait for my name to come down
and as it does
the dream is captured and
i’m walking i don’t even know where i’m
going i’m crying
and i go to the media tent
and the media guy he walks up and he
says
how do you feel and
with tears streaming down my face
i said i faced my fear of failure
i am so proud of my commitment
and my sticking to my pursuit
i am proud no matter the outcome and i’m
proud of my recommitment
after my failure in 96
it was worth it
you see the process revealed my
character
it allowed me to become the best person
that i could be
in order to pursue the gifts
that i got of my family and my legacy
every february i get this strange
wonderful feeling when i look down at my
twitter feed
and i see this
in 2016 i was named
an african-american trailblazer for unc
it is an award given to folks that have
gone out in the world and made a
significant difference
i tell you this because i had issues
with my identity
being a black female athlete
and no longer as i captured my dream
did i struggle not only
did i make history but i am black
history
as a believer
i want to leave an inheritance for my
children’s children
i want to leave a legacy of
blazing trails and leaving trails
that are the experiences of my life
my next pursuit is completion
of a phd
my life’s verse lines up perfectly
to this opportunity so much that’s been
given much will be required
and i’ve been given so much so what i’ll
share with you
is is is a gift from me and it’s the
three c’s and they have been a part of
my
life since at every stage number one
you have to be competent there is no
replacing
what it means to practice to have trials
and failures that lead you to mass
mastery then you will get confidence
after your confidence you will be able
to compete and i
challenge you that no matter your race
your gender your sexual orientation
your family of origin i invite you to
believe in yourself
i invite you to look in the mirror
and say i am tough to beat i
invite you to pursue your dreams
and i invite you to commit to the three
c’s
and when you do you will become
the first one through for you and those
that follow you and the legacy that you
leave
will possibly change the trajectory
of a little girl or a little boy’s life
so i invite you to be
the first one through thank you
you