#jacqueline joyner kersee

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March 3, 1962 - Jacqueline Joyner-Kersee is a Black American retired track and field athlete, ranked among the all-time greatest athletes in the heptathlon as well as long jump was born in East St. Louis, IL, on this date in 1962.

She won three gold, one silver, and two bronze Olympic medals in those two events at four different Olympic Games. Sports Illustrated for Women magazine voted Joyner-Kersee the Greatest Female Athlete of All-Time.

She is on the Board of Directors for USA Track & Field (U.S.A.T.F.), the national governing body of the sport. Joyner-Kersee is an active philanthropist in children's education, racial equality and women's rights. She is a founder of the Jackie Joyner-Kersee Foundation, which encourages young people in East St. Louis to pursue athletics and academics.

She partnered with Comcast to create the Internet Essentials program in 2011, which costs $9.95/month for low-income Americans and offers low-cost laptops and 40 hours/month of high-speed internet service. Since its inception, it has provided internet access to 4 million Americans.

Joyner-Kersee is one of the most famous athletes to have overcome severe asthma. Joyner-Kersee attended college at the University of California, Los Angeles, where she starred in both track & field and in women's basketball from 1980–1985.

She was a starter in her forward position for each of her first three seasons (1980–81, 81–82, and 82–83) as well as in her senior (fifth) year, 1984–1985. She had red-shirted during the 1983–1984 academic year to concentrate on the heptathlon for the 1984 Summer Olympics.

She won the Broderick Award as the nation's best female collegiate track and field competitor in 1983 and in 1985, and was awarded the Honda-Broderick Cup, given to the nation's best female collegiate athlete in 1985. She scored 1,167 points during her collegiate career, which places her 19th all time for the Bruins games.

The Bruins advanced to the West Regional semi-finals of the 1985 NCAA Women's Division I Basketball Tournament before losing to eventual runner-up Georgia. She was honored on February 21, 1998 as one of the 15 greatest players in UCLA women's basketball. In April 2001, Joyner-Kersee was voted the "Top Woman Collegiate Athlete of the Past 25 Years."

The vote was conducted among the 976 NCAA member schools. Since 1981, the Jesse Owens Award is given by USATF the United States' track and field "athlete of the year." In 1996, the award was split to be given to the top athlete of each gender.

In 2013, the Female award was renamed the Jackie Joyner-Kersee Award. As of October 2019, Joyner-Kersee holds the world record in heptathlon along with the top six all-time best results whilst her long jump record of 7.49 m is second on the long jump all-time list.

In addition to heptathlon and long jump, she was a world class athlete in 100 m hurdles and 200 meters being as of June 2006 in top 60 all time in those events. Sports Illustrated voted her the greatest female athlete of the 20th century.

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Born on this day... Jacqueline Joyner Kersee, Athlete Bio