‘Never give up’: A Mehock Relays homecoming has never meant more to track legend after health scare
MANSFIELD – There could be a lot of steal-the-show moments in Saturday’s 90th Mehock Relays.
Maybe Columbus Beechcroft’s Jayden Douglas, one of the nation’s top hurdlers and a TCU commit, duplicates the 2015 gold medal performance of his brother Frank, a former Madison Rams star.
Maybe Sycamore Mohawk’s Zaiden Fry, a University of Houston commit, wins gold to go with his two state titles in the pole vault.
Maybe Clear Fork’s Joe Stupka and Mansfield Senior’s Keontez Bradley, an Arizona State football commit, duel to the death in the dashes – figuratively speaking, of course, – like they did a couple of weeks ago in the Madison Invitational.
Whatever happens, nobody will walk away from Mehock Field feeling more like a champion than Jeff Jenkins, one of this city’s all-time track and field giants.
Life, with all of its trials and tribulations, has a way of altering perspective. Little things, like being able to attend the Mehock Relays as a coach or spectator, suddenly become the biggest victories.
Jenkins found that out the scary way just seven months after bringing his Cleveland Central Catholic team to last spring’s Relays.
He had surgery in November to remove a lemon-sized tumor from his brain. The best news coming from his ordeal and long road to recovery was that the tumor was benign.
“In June, I noticed that the right size of my body wasn’t working like it used to,” Jenkins, 66, said. “I thought it was because of knee surgery or because I was overweight.”
In October, he slipped and fell in his bedroom. That’s when he knew something was definitely wrong, and not necessarily because of the fall itself.
“My wife (Anita) heard me hollering,” he said. “For some reason I couldn’t get my equilibrium right so that I could balance myself. She heard me hollering for my mom and my mom has been dead for 15-20 years.”
Jenkins was taken by ambulance to the hospital, where the medical staff did X-rays on his ankles, knees and hips. They also did an MRI of his brain and that’s when the tumor was discovered. It was so large it had taken over almost the entire left side of his brain.
“My buddies kept saying, Jeff, do you have a club foot? Why are you dragging your right foot so much?” Jenkins said. “I thought it was an old injury from basketball or track. But when I had the tumor removed, my doctor said I was lucky because my whole right side could have been shut down.”
He didn’t know exactly how dire his situation was until a recent conversation with one of his caregivers.
“The lady from home health care told me, you know when you were in the hospital, you died. You had total heart failure. They brought you back,” Jenkins said. “When she told me that, I was like, wow.”
Wow, indeed.
How do you ever see things the same after hearing that?
One of Jenkins’ first visitors after the surgery was Mansfield Senior track coach Tyree Shine. They have known each other their entire lives, as competitors all the way back to elementary school and as teammates at Malabar High School (which eventually merged with Mansfield Senior) in the early 1970s.
“My head (with 48 staples in his scalp) was so swollen the doctor said don’t look in the mirror,” Jenkins said. “Tyree came in and said, you remember the cartoon Mr. Magoo? That’s who you look like. I couldn’t even put my glasses on.”
Although he was admitted to the hospital on Oct. 17, the surgery couldn’t be performed until the first week of November because his blood pressure was too high.
He began his after-care at the hospital before being transferred to a rehab facility. Thankfully, he was back home in time to celebrate the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays, but he wasn’t cleared to drive a car again until February.
“I had to learn how to walk, talk, read … it was like having a stroke,” Jenkins said. “I had to learn how to do all the stuff all over again. I was eating with my hands because I forgot how to use eating utensils.
“I couldn’t go anywhere. I’m sitting in my house and the walls were closing in on me. When I first got out of the hospital I slept with the TV on. My wife said, why don’t you turn the TV off and let your body rest?”
So he did. That’s when things took another unexpected turn.
“A spirit came to me and said, A lot of people say they give their life to me, but you didn’t give your life to me. I took your life and I gave it back to you. Now get out there and do what you’re supposed to do.”
Jenkins, a two-time state hurdles champ for Madison High School, wasn’t planning to resume a coaching career that has seen him develop three Mehock champion hurdlers and countless state champion hurdlers – even national champions in Mehock gold medalists Ted Ginn Jr., the former Glenville, Ohio State and NFL star, and Warren JFK’s Chad Zallow.
He’s coached at five different high schools and founded Hurdlers Haven (hurdlershaven.com), a camp for Cleveland area hurdlers.
“When I got out of the hospital I was just done,” he said. “I was just going to lay around the house and get back up to 400 pounds. My wife didn’t want me to go back into coaching neither, but the doctor said, Hey, you’ve got to do what you like to do.”
So, gradually, Jenkins came around. He didn’t do any coaching with Cleveland Central Catholic during the indoor season but he did train his Hurdlers Haven bunch, with those kids picking him up for practice and then taking him home.
This spring, he is back with his Central Catholic kids, but just as an assistant as he works toward a full recovery. He was CCC’s head coach the last two years.
Jenkins, who lives in Bedford, is working with a personal trainer, Oliver Hairston, whose late brother, Ed, was a star athlete for Malabar. Jenkins is watching his diet in hopes of getting under 300 pounds so that he is eligible for a knee replacement.
“I’ve been training three days a week with Hairston,” he said. “I’ve gotten up to 225 pounds on the incline bench press, so my strength is returning.”
At one point, Jenkins’ weight topped off at 420 pounds.
“When I had Chad Zallow, we were traveling and eating in restaurants all the time,” Jenkins said. “We were in New York, Florida, Texas, California … restaurants every weekend somewhere.”
Now Jenkins is more interested in eating up every moment with his athletes and making the most of the second chance he’s been given.
“I’m having the time of my life,” he said. “This is the best time I’ve had in coaching. Even when I had Zallow and Ginn and worked with Glenville (which has won multiple Mehock and state team titles), this is the best time I’m having in my life.”
Because he appreciates the little things, the little victories, more.
“I’ve gotten a lot of hugs and kisses from the kids from Central Catholic,” Jenkins said. “I am so excited. Our team has a lot of young kids, but I’m happy. We have four hurdlers, freshmen and sophomores. Hurdles is what I love.”
Anybody who knows anything about Jenkins’ background already knew that.
He never won a Mehock title. He was sidelined his junior year at Malabar after having reconstructive knee surgery and then as senior, after transferring to Madison, he lost in a photo finish to a hurdler from Indiana on what Jenkins called “the coldest day in my life.”
Poetic justice would come at the end of the season in Columbus, when he swept the 120-yard high hurdles and the 180-yard low hurdles for a pair of 1975 state championships.
His titles came 25 years – “to the day,” Jenkins said – after his dad, A.C. Jenkins, swept the hurdles at the state meet. His dad was a tremendous athlete, and Mehock champion, for Mansfield Senior.
Just as his dad was an inspiration to him, Jenkins hopes that in the wake of his health scare that he can be an inspiration to his four sons, his athletes and anyone he encounters this weekend at Mehock Field.
“How many guys can say they've had two national champions (Ginn Jr. and Zallow)? I can’t even count the number of state champs I’ve had,” Jenkins said. “I’ve been truly blessed as far as track and field goes. And I have a good wife (Anita had the Bedford High School records in the 100 and 200 dashes) who supports me.
“I was wondering if I’d ever make it back to the Mehock Relays … or anything. Never give up.”
This article originally appeared on Mansfield News Journal: ‘Never give up’: A Mehock Relays homecoming has never meant more to track legend after health scare
