Joyner-Kersee’s Win Tougher on Her Husband

So what if Bobby Kersee had said his wife would try to set a world record in the long jump Friday night at The Times/GTE indoor track meet at the Forum.

So what if Jackie Joyner-Kersee didn’t do it.

It was just one of those married-people’s things. It was the sort of device that was calculated as much to let her know he thought she was capable of such a thing, as much as it was meant as a prediction.

Bobby is all the time doing things like that to Jackie. Light a fire under her. Rattle her cage.

What Kersee should think to do is give his wife some of his own ample supply of adrenaline. What’s he going to do with it?

Joyner-Kersee did not set a world indoor record. She did break her meet record (twice) and pronounced herself satisfied with her winning jump of 22 feet 10 1/2 inches.

But she’s more easily placated then her husband.

While his wife is calmly reclining between jumps, Kersee is a fussbudget. He paces. He strains to catch her attention so he, the coach, can impart some compelling bit of minutia regarding technique or the number of steps on her approach run or the state of her hair . . .

Kersee sweats the details. Last week, even as Jackie was setting a U.S. record at a meet in New Jersey, Bobby was seeing angles of release and points of propulsion.

This may explain why, in speaking of his wife’s jumping, Kersee often sounds like a ballistics expert.

“Her speed and her trajectory off the board is starting to come,” he said Friday night. “On her last one, she tried to hold her extension. She’s under-rotating.”

Kersee was less than pleased with conditions last week. Both liked the Tartan runway coating, a rubbery, bouncy surface. That was good.

They didn’t like the short pit, which gave Joyner-Kersee a sense that she would, with a good jump, land “in a mess of people.” That would be bad. For the people.

Kersee thought that the inadequate pit caused Jackie to shorten her extension in the pit, lest she jump beyond the sand.

“I wish we had last week’s runway with this pit,” he said.

There are other distractions indoors. On her fourth jump, Joyner-Kersee stood at the end of the runway, her concentration divided between long jumping successfully and avoiding a head-on collision with a pole vaulter.

“The guy was standing there with a pole, I didn’t understand what he was doing,” she said. “I kept my eye on him.”

Joyner-Kersee ran through her first jump, evidently unhappy with her steps. Jumpers strive to “get on the board,” which means they hit the board hard with their takeoff foot, digging the two rows of 1/2-inch spikes into the plywood.

“It’s always different going from board to board,” Kersee said. “You have to adjust.”

On her second jump, there was board to spare. With room for improvement, she jumped 22-7, a meet record. She held the former record.

The third jump was a conservative 22-1.

By the fourth jump, Joyner-Kersee had made all the necessary adjustments. She roared down the runway and attacked the board. Her right foot dug into the board with nary a splinter left.

It was her best jump yet, 22-10 1/2. Another meet record.

“That jump was set up pretty good,” she said. “After that, I said to myself, ‘Pass the fifth one and go all out on the sixth.’ ”

There is a radical difference between what Joyner-Kersee says in the privacy of her own mind and that which she dares share with her coach.

She took the jumps.

Giddy with the success of the previous jump and confident of her step, Joyner-Kersee got greedy. The front of her shoe flopped over the board on the fifth jump. Foul.

On the sixth jump, her step was off and she was still adjusting the length of her strides as she raced toward the pit. The jump, 22-5.