Lolo Jones and I exchanged a flurry of text messages when she visited Des Moines July 15 for her Olympic send-off. But we never connected. Lolo was too busy helping flood-relief victims, inspiring young athletes and showing Iowans that the state would be represented by an energetic ambassador of goodwill.
"I'm sorry, Marilyn. I'll make it up to you," read her final text message.
Of course she has nothing to make up to me. It was reward enough to watch the kindness of this extraordinary young woman I got to know 10 years before when she was a teenager in need.
Lolo moved in with my family her junior year of high school. My former husband, Randy Essex, and I knew Lolo from the Des Moines Area Youth Track Club, where our son, Dustin Essex, 10, ran distance events. Under the leadership of Coach Phil Ferguson, the track club had a family-like atmosphere. And in the summer of 1998, one of our kids was facing a gigantic hurdle: Lolo's mother was moving to Forest City.
We knew Lolo had tremendous promise that could be wasted were she forced to abruptly change track coaches and schools. We told Coach Phil we would help if we could.
His reply, "Can she live with you?"
Randy and I certainly hadn't gotten through life without unexpected help from time to time. When we married, a friend in Abilene, Texas, gave us an embarrassingly large cash present with a note that read, "Pass it along when you're able. Spread a little bread on the water."
Overnight, we became immersed in the world of a teenage girl: hosting basketball dinners, getting our house wrapped in toilet paper, learning the hit music of the time. I even surprised myself by uttering words I never thought would come from my mouth: "Please turn your stereo down."
When time for driver's education approached, Lolo was chagrined at discovering both our vehicles had standard transmissions. I can still hear my gears grinding as the hills of Glendale Cemetery proved more challenging for Lolo than hurdles ever were. Randy that night told her when she was a famous Olympian and could afford an expensive sports car, she would thank us for teaching her to drive a stick. Most teens would have laughed off such a comment as a pipe dream. But Randy had stumbled upon her most precious dream. "Don't put that kind of pressure on me," she retorted.
We got to be part of a village that helped Lolo. Coach Phil and members of the track club looked out for her. Teachers at Roosevelt High School made sure she put together the right classes to be ready for college. Dr. Dennis Kommer, a Des Moines orthodontist, enhanced her winning smile by reducing the cost of her braces. Des Moines attorney Dwight James handled paperwork pro bono to assure she was covered by our health insurance. Jean and Kim Walker and later Janice Caldwell also welcomed Lolo into their homes. And the list goes on.
Now, watching world champion Lolo Jones being interviewed brings on happy tears, surprised tears, but most of all proud tears.
Lolo told a news reporter that over the years when she needed help, strangers told her, "Here it is - no strings attached. I'm glad I could return what somebody did for me years ago."
Taking a stranger into our home was risky. Failing to step in when a teen's future was on the line would have been far riskier.
I think back to our friend's advice, "Spread a little bread on the water." Sometimes you never know how far an act of kindness will travel.
Nurtured by Lolo's determination and hard work, the kindness showed by so many in central Iowa has gone all the way to Beijing - with bread crumbs scattered across several oceans.
Source: Des Moines Register
Beijing, China - They stand silent sentry, stretched over 100 meters, waiting to test the focus and determination of Olympic hurdlers - and alter the course of others.
Ten chances to slow a runner, to sap precious, race-determining hundredths of seconds.
Ten chances to send dreams tumbling into track's abyss.
Ten chances to change fortunes and, in some cases, lives.
Few understand the hazard-filled road from start line to hurdling glory better than Des Moines Roosevelt's Lolo Jones, who begins competition in the Olympic 100-meter hurdles Sunday at Beijing's National Stadium.
"They keep saying, 'Lolo, you're the favorite to go in,' " Jones said. "And I tell them, no, it's hurdles - 10 obstacles in front of us and anybody can hit any one of those and go from first to third so fast."
There's no need for Jones to convince others of her caution. The 26-year-old, in her first Olympics, owns a couple dozen hurdle-related scars on her world-class legs to prove it.
No one has run faster in the world this year than the 12.29-second, wind-aided clocking Jones recorded in July to win the U.S. Olympic Trials in Eugene, Ore.
Jones rewinds back to 2004, though, to painfully recall a hurdle grabbing her at the U.S. Olympic Trials in the 100-meter semifinals - and nearly forcing her out of the sport as she gauged whether she could financially continue.
"Maybe in a regular track meet, you might be able to have a bad start and still make a comeback," Jones said. "But at the Olympics, everybody's going to be on their 'A' game."
U.S. women's track coach Jeanette Bolden said Jones is "definitely on the rise" coming into the Olympics, an assessment that bodes well for a shot at the 2012 Olympics in London.
But Jones remembers Drake Relays star Perdita Felicien, an Olympic favorite, crumpling to the ground at the 2004 Athens Games.
"She was the favorite last time, and fell over the first hurdle," she said.
Misfortune also ensnared defending Olympic champion and record-holder Johanna Hayes when she failed to advance beyond the Olympic Trials.
"It just inspired me, like 'Look, Lolo, you're not guaranteed another Olympics,' " Jones said. "This is it. Go for it."
Jones predicts Delloreen Ennis-London and Bridgitte Foster-Hylton of Jamaica, Australia's Sally McLellan and Spain's Josephine Onyia will vie for medals.
A representative of Asics, a shoe company and Jones sponsor, jokingly mentioned before a photo shoot on a Beijing rooftop this week that USA Today had picked another set of legs to win gold.
The newspaper selected Ennis-London in its medal predictions. Most others, however, have picked Jones.
Jones shrugged off the news, seemingly relaxed and oblivious to the analysis of others.
Kim Carson, a former Roosevelt star who also competed as an elite hurdler, said Jones is acclimating herself to the Olympic attention - but may be unprepared for what waits if she crosses the line first at Tuesday's finals.
"It's coming a mile a minute," Carson said.
Jones is certain, however, of the focus needed to face the world's best - and the 10 other challenges along the way.
"The focus has to be severely intense," she said.
Source: The Des Moines Register
By Bryce Miller
Beijing, China — Every morning that kids showed up for the church summer camp at the Salvation Army building in Des Moines, Lolo Jones, her sister and brothers were there.
Day after day, Jones bounced around the gymnasium as others walked in.
She owned boundless energy and an infectious smile, but also a guarded secret. The woman picked by some to win the gold medal in the 100-meter hurdles at the Summer Olympics lived in the basement.
"I remember we had to wake up earlier than when the kids started arriving, so they wouldn't tease us," she said. "Me and my brothers would get up and we'd be in the gym before the other kids got there.
"So it kind of looked like our parents were the first to drop us off at the camp."
These Olympics are positioned to be a global introduction for Jones, a 26-year-old graduate of Roosevelt High School.
Oakley launched a campaign for its "Enduring" sunglasses line that features Jones, the Olympic Trials winner and reigning world champion in the 60-meter indoor hurdles.
The U.S. Olympic Committee will bring three women's track stars to a Thursday news conference with international media: Olympic gold medalist Sanya Richards, Olympic silver medalist and world champion Allyson Felix - and Jones.
A life that included homelessness now resonates with world-stage possibility.
"This is not like a Dream Team basketball person that has a multimillion-dollar contract," said Kim Carson, another Roosevelt track star who has helped Jones since junior high school on and off the track and traveled to Beijing. "This is a kid who had nothing."
Growing up, Jones attended eight schools in eight years as her single mother, Lori, bounced between Texas and Iowa, often holding down two jobs to support her children. Jones' father, who spent time in the Air Force and jail, "wasn't really in the picture much," she said.
While in third grade, Jones estimated, the family ended up in the basement of the church.
All the changes eventually became too much for Jones, who decided against a move to Forest City, protesting: "Mom, I can't go to a city that doesn't have a track. I'm trying to pursue my dream."
The decision began a stretch in which Jones lived with three families, including that of Randy Essex, a former assistant managing editor of The Des Moines Register who now works at the Detroit Free Press.
Essex noticed at youth track events his son participated in that no one seemed to be in the stands cheering Jones, a blossoming star.
"It was a really family-oriented club," Essex said. "I asked (the club organizer) after practice why there were no parents or adults around Lolo."
That conversation eventually led to Jones moving in with Essex and his family for about 16 months, beginning in August 1998.
"When she moved in with us, it was obviously a difficult situation for her," Essex said. "We were almost strangers."
Essex watched, impressed, as Jones quietly focused on decision after decision. She worked at track. She worked at school. She worked at her job at the Iowa Bagel Bakery near 42nd Street and University Avenue.
"Just a hard-working, dependable kid," he said.
Jones also lived with Kim Walker, a Des Moines attorney, and his wife, Jean.
Walker watched, proudly, last month as Jones returned to Roosevelt to hand over new track shoes and a $12,000 check to Renee Trout, a flood victim and single mother from Cedar Rapids.
"That's as good a role model as we can ask for, don't you think?" Walker said.
When high school ended, Jones landed a spot on the track team at Louisiana State University - a national powerhouse. At LSU, the uniqueness of her situation revealed itself to Jones for the first time.
Other LSU students packed up belongings to go home for the holidays. Jones paused.
"I was like, 'Wait, I don't have a bedroom to go (to) back home,' " Jones said.
LSU coach Dennis Shaver knew the family faced financial challenges, but said "she never complained."
When Jones graduated, she worked minimum-wage jobs to keep chasing an Olympic track dream - an experience she said was more difficult than being temporarily homeless.
"It was more hard for me to swallow my pride and take out garbage at a gym when I had an economics degree and Spanish minor," she said.
"I had people come up to me, like, 'Didn't you graduate? What are you doing working at this gym?' I was like, 'I'm trying to do this track thing. If I get a 9-to-5 (job), I won't have flexibility to leave the country and go to these competitions.' "
When Jones missed a spot in Athens after falling during the 2004 Olympic Trials, Shaver became a salesman for Jones.
Shaver told the big-time track sponsors, "her day will come if given the opportunity."
That day did come.
Jones remembers walking to school, during brutal Iowa winters, because the family didn't own a car. Now she's sponsored by Oakley and Asics - and has the ability to focus on track full time.
"My life changed," Jones said. "I went from eating ramen noodles to steak, fish and chicken - what an athlete should be eating."
Sponsorships allowed her routine access to massages, chiropractors and the tools other elite athletes use to maintain peak condition.
"It just helped me get the things an athlete needs to be successful," Jones said of the sponsors. "A businessman needs a laptop. Athletes need massages and the right diet."
Jones talks freely about the struggles that led her to China, where she begins competition Sunday in the preliminaries of the 100-meter hurdles.
"A lot of it is, she's not ashamed of it," Carson said. "Her mom's been honest with her. She understands the struggle of a single parent."
In the end, Jones continued to push, balked at chances to quit and traveled from a basement to the ultimate sports stage in Beijing.
"Lolo Jones is a great American story," Essex said. "You don't get that many anymore, with people who grew up poor and seize every opportunity. And she really did."
Source: The Des Moines Register
Track star Lolo Jones gives us the tunes she sweats to
Ordinary Life Liquido
I like to warm up to this song because it reminds me that although this is an ordinary life for me, it is not for most. It reminds me to appreciate and take advantage of this opportunity.
Tokyo Drift Teriyaki Boyz
At this point I am finishing my warm-up and have begun lightly stretching. So it's good to remember, fast and furious is what I am aiming for.
Perfekte Welle Juli
I travel a lot in Germany so naturally I have started to take an inclination to some of their artists.
Im'ma Shine Youngbloodz
Big Things Poppin' T.I
You Decide Fireflight
I like this song because running is 90 percent mental. If you can't deal with your doubts they will destroy you.
The Fight The Classic Crime
My favorite line in this song is when it says you can sink or swim.
Game On Disciple
This song is funny to me because I am not a big trash talker but this whole song is basically saying to the other opponents, Are you ready? I am ready for you so you better be!
Galvanize The Chemical Brothers
Relax, Take it Easy Mika
I like to cool down to this song after the race because whatever happens, it's done. Sometimes when things happen in a race you go crazy trying to evaluate what you could've done. This song just tells you to stay cool and relax.
Download the playlist in iTunes!
Source: Women's Health
While her competition hopes to ice Lolo Jones' chances for the gold in Beijing, the world-class hurdler will be a cool attraction at the Iowa State Fair.
A sculptor plans to carve an image of Jones in ice during an ice carving demonstration at the fair, which begins on Thursday.
Ice carving demonstrations will be held daily and Jones is scheduled to be carved into ice on Aug. 17, the same day she is scheduled to compete in the first round of the 100-meter hurdles at the Olympics.
Jones isn't the only Iowa Olympian to have her likeness put on display at the fair. Gymnast Shawn Johnson will be carved in butter alongside the butter cow.
Source: WHO TV