Jeff D'Alessio: Olympic legend's against-all-odds story on display today

May 13—A 'truly heroic' effort Who would Olympic great Jackie Joyner-Kersee's weekend host like to award with a gold medal?

"That's an easy one," UI Chancellor Robert Jones said on commencement eve.

"I'd award gold medals to all of the students in 2020 and 2021 who did every single thing we asked of them during the pandemic to be able to come back together in a way that protected them and all of our community. "During one of the most frightening and uncertain periods in most of our lives, our students all came together and helped make this university one of the safest places in the world. They were truly heroic, and I do not believe our community and our state gave those young women and men the credit and recognition they all deserve."

CHAMPAIGN — Jackie Joyner-Kersee didn't get to attend her own graduation ceremony 38 years ago at UCLA. She was tied up that weekend in Texas, where she posted five top-five finishes at her final NCAA Division I Track and Field Championships.

But the six-time Olympic medalist — on most short lists for the greatest female athlete of all-time — will be front and center on diploma day at Illinois this morning, when she'll deliver the commencement address to the Class of '23 at Memorial Stadium.

Her theme: the importance of believing in yourself.

"This is a big moment for all the graduates to gather for the occasion and celebrate their success and hard work," Joyner-Kersee said this week in an interview from Germany.

It won't be the first time Joyner-Kersee shares a stage with UI Chancellor Robert Jones. Last August, they sat side-by-side in Creve Coeur, Mo., to celebrate another gold medal-worthy achievement: the Jackie Joyner-Kersee Food, Agriculture and Nutrition Innovation Center, aka JJK FAN.

Their conversation illustrated their shared passion for education, agriculture and overcoming odds. Joyner-Kersee knows first-hand that challenges are a part of any process — a message sure to resonate with graduates.

"Know that anything worth having is worth fighting for, working hard every day — when someone else is sleeping, you are up trying to figure out what you need to do to make that difference," she said.

JJK FAN is a public-private partnership between Joyner-Kersee's foundation, the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center and the University of Illinois. Its aim: to build "a new generation of scholars from an urban environment who are immersed in the agricultural and food sciences."

Both Joyner-Kersee and Jones had similar childhood experiences and are passionate advocates for uplifting students through ag and education, making them ideal teammates for what the chancellor has referred to as "a big, bold idea."

The idea for the Innovation Center formed early, when Joyner-Kersee was home from college and found padlocks on the door of the community center she frequented in her hometown of East St. Louis. The seed was planted.

She knew that someday she wanted to come back to East St. Louis to make sure kids had a place to feel safe, play sports, learn and connect with community seniors, who she called "her extended family."

'Irrepressible drive'

As Joyner-Kersee was growing up in East St. Louis in the 1960s, gun violence was a part of daily life. Her mother didn't have a high school education and was just 14 when she started having children. Her father tried to make ends meet working in construction. The family of six lived in Jackie's great-grandmother's home, which has since been torn down.

In co-writing Joyner-Kersee's autobiography, "A Kind of Grace: An Autobiography of the World's Greatest Athlete," Sonja Steptoe was struck by all the odds she overcame — the neighborhood violence, the struggles with life-threatening asthma attacks, the poverty that meant mayonnaise or syrup sandwiches for dinner some days.

"Amid the blight of the 1960s and 1970s in East St. Louis, a cadre of supportive relatives, friends, mentors and coaches helped Joyner-Kersee blossom into a spiritually resilient and athletically gifted young woman able to outrace, leap above, jump across and throw herself beyond a seemingly endless stream of disadvantages, disappointments and difficulties," Steptoe told The News-Gazette in an earlier interview.

"Even now, as hurdles continue to appear in her path, still she rises to clear them, propelled by the irrepressible drive that helped this child of East St. Louis thrive while all around her withered."

Joyner-Kersee remembers her mother telling her to "live each day like it's your last." Growing up in East St. Louis, she knew that could be true — her grandmother and dance instructor were both killed before Joyner-Kersee finished high school. Another time, when she was 11, she saw a man shot right in front of her, outside her own home.

"My sister Deborah and I had been to the liquor store for sweets and chips," she recalled in an interview with The Guardian. "An argument between two men escalated. One drew a gun and, as we ducked, the other guy dropped to the pavement. Drugs and crime infested the neighborhood, but that environment toughened me up."

Two of a kind

Jones remembers hearing about Joyner-Kersee "the same way the rest of the world did — by watching this young kid appear seemingly out of nowhere, to those of us who weren't in track and field, and earn the silver medal in the 1984 heptathlon" while still in college.

"But I'm sure I came to stand truly in awe of her in 1988 in Seoul, where she really dominated the Games and captured the attention of the entire sports world," he said. "You can count me firmly in the camp of those who believe she is among the greatest athletes of our time."

Thirty years later, Jones met the three-time Olympic gold medalist when he joined the board of directors of the Farm Foundation.

"She had been a member for several years. We reconnected when Associate Chancellor Kim Kidwell and Jackie launched the JJK-Illinois partnership. And I'll tell you flat out that watching her in person, working with the kids and families in East St. Louis, is even more impressive to me than watching her capturing medal after medal during her track career," Jones said.

As the son of a sharecropper who went on to become the UI's first African American chancellor, Jones can personally relate to both the tragedies and the triumphs.

"Jackie's story is not all that different from my story. You know, hers happened in an urban environment; mine happened in the rural peanuts and cotton fields of southwestern Georgia and Georgia red clay," he said. "But one of the common factors is that we both saw something greater for ourselves than our current situations."

Jones has worked hard to reenergize the university's commitment to public and community engagement in his nearly eight years as chancellor. Partnerships like the one with Joyner-Kersee are part of that.

"This university was charged from day one with using education and research to put new knowledge and tools directly in the hands of the citizens of our state and country who needed it to survive — and to build safer and more comfortable lives," he said.

'Sports is the hook'

Joyner-Kersee spent a lot of time at her community center growing up and was devastated to find it shut down when she came back home during her freshman year at UCLA.

"It really stuck with me," she said. And so, in 1988, she started the JJK Foundation to raise funds for athletic, cultural and educational programs for disadvantaged youth.

In 2000, she opened the doors to a center like the one that made such a difference in her life, providing a safe haven for youth in East St. Louis. Now, in the next five years, JJK FAN will expand to include multiple indoor and outdoor ag demonstration sites along with space for hands-on training and certification programs.

And, of course, there will be plenty of space for sports and physical activity.

"I might not have walked in their same shoes, but I walked on the same streets," Joyner-Kersee said. "Sports is the hook. The key is to engage — so they can experience and be introduced to agriculture. And also to connect — so they know that this is where your food comes from. Having an education means many more doors will open."

Joyner-Kersee hopes more people will stop by. And you're all invited to join her for the JJK5K race on June 3, part of NASCAR weekend at the oval track in Madison.

If the namesake decides to participate, it's a good bet that she'll add another gold medal to her collection.