It’s a New Life : Joyners Work Toward Return to Competition

Mary Ruth Joyner, all of 9 months, has big brown inquisitive eyes, pierced ears and a drop-dead smile that could brighten the darkest of moods. So, who could blame passersby for looking beyond the mother in the ivory-colored sweat suit and noticing only the sweet child?

Those passing through the lobby of a Newport Beach hotel one night this week might have been unaware that Mary’s mother is one of the most recognizable names in sport--Florence Griffith Joyner--known to the world as FloJo. Even father Al is an Olympic champion of some renown.

But this was Mary’s stage, and Al and Florence Joyner looked more like proud parents than accomplished Olympians as a stream of people acknowledged their first child with oohs and aahs.

Parenthood can do that to you. It also can change priorities.

The Joyners will leave Saturday for Tokyo--without Mary--where Florence will work as a commentator on Japanese television during the track and field World Championships this week. The parents are torn about leaving the child.

“We left her for a day only once,” Al said. “That was hard enough. This is going to be real tough.”

But it may not be long before Mary starts globe-trotting with her parents.

The Joyners--Al, a triple jump gold-medal winner in 1984, and Florence, the most decorated female sprinter in U.S. Olympic history--have been in training, and in essence, are quietly ending their retirements from track and field.

Al said he is preparing for the 1992 Olympics in the 110-meter hurdles. He finished seventh at the 1988 U.S. Olympic trials in the hurdles. He also may contend as a triple jumper.

Florence, who won three gold medals and a silver at Seoul and a silver in Los Angeles, is continuing her plan of running the marathon in the 1996 Games at Atlanta. But she said that under certain conditions, she may consider returning to the track in the 400 meters before next summer’s Barcelona Games. She holds world records in the 100 (10.49 seconds), and the 200 (21.34).

“All I know is that she has a sign when she is training saying ‘400 world record,’ ” Al said. “I want her to run the 400.

“I’ll be glad when my daughter starts talking so she can say, ‘Mommy, run the 400.’ Then it will be two against one.”

Actually, it would be difficult to find a more supportive household. This re-run toward Olympic gold has stayed within the family.

The Joyners train together at UC Irvine, coaching and motivating each other. Al also works out three times a week at UCLA with hurdling specialist Tommy Lee White, a Cal State Northridge professor of kinesiology.

But it is the couple’s aggressiveness that drives them.

“We’re even competitive when we clean the house,” Al said.

Florence is vague about her plans for the 400 because, she said, she does not know what will happen. She wants to concentrate on her husband’s effort in the hurdles, as well as continue designing clothes and writing children’s books.

“If I suddenly say I don’t want to write anymore, I don’t want to design, I don’t want to do anything but run, I would train for the 400 meters,” Florence said, adding that if the urge does not come by 1993 she will not attempt it.

Still, the 400 remains a burning question for Griffith Joyner. Despite her world-record runs in the 100 and 200, she said the competitive drive has not diminished.

In 1983, Griffith Joyner won the NCAA championship in the 400 meters, an event in which she said she entered only to help UCLA gain team points. She said she loves the race because everyone always tried to steer her away from it.

Same with the marathon, but she is taking her time to establish herself. Griffith Joyner is slowly increasing her mileage on the neatly paved roads around Lake Mission Viejo near the couple’s home. She hopes to have a solid base by 1996.

“I want to be able to run 26 miles at a six-minute mile pace,” she said.

But Griffith Joyner will not overextend herself. She said if she cannot find the time to train properly, she will not try to compete. Still, it is difficult to let go.

“Running has been part of my life since I was 7, and even younger,” said Griffith Joyner, who grew up in the Jordan Downs project in Watts. “Me, I’ll run anywhere. When friends ask me to go for a bike ride, I say, ‘You ride the bike, I’ll run.’

“Everyone used to think I was crazy because I love the training. I miss that the most. You cry, your legs burn, but that is all part of it. Life hurts itself.”

Because of the baby, the Joyners often train in shifts. While Florence does her three-mile morning run, Al watches Mary. When Al goes to UCLA to work on hurdling techniques, Florence runs on the treadmill in the house. She logs eight to nine miles a day.

Al’s motivation to return is much more basic than his wife’s.

Al, whose sister, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, also excelled in the 1988 Games as a long jumper and decathlete, felt left out after failing to make the U.S. team in 1988.

With his wife and sister becoming two of the Games’ biggest stars, Joyner, 31, said he was frustrated with the end of his career. He failed to qualify in the triple jump by three inches.

So, one day Florence told him to try for the hurdles. In only his second race of the year in 1988 he qualified for the final at the U.S. trials. Take it seriously, Florence told him. See what you can do.

Al had planned to run the hurdles at The Athletic Congress national championships in New York last June. Top finishers from the meet gained berths to the World Championships.

But his course was altered on Oct. 30 after a long day on the track at UCLA. Joyner said his car was hit from behind while stopped at a light on a major thoroughfare just off the San Diego Freeway near his home.

“A lot of things shot through my head,” Al recalled. “The first thing was, ‘There goes my Olympic dreams.’ My whole life flashed in front of me.”

Joyner suffered back pain and a hamstring strain from the accident.

“Mostly it was emotions,” he said, adding that Florence had been eight months pregnant at the time.

The accident, though, changed his training routine to the point where he did not enter the TAC national meet. He plans to start running the hurdles competitively during the next indoor season.

Missing the national championship meet was bad enough, but watching was even worse, he said. And while in New York, Joyner was asked if he would consider competing again in the triple jump.

He told reporters no, unless the jumpers qualified for the World Championships with a leap of 55 feet, a distance he thought many could easily surpass. Kenny Harrison won the TAC title in 56 feet 10 inches. But the next two qualifiers went 55-10 1/2 and 55-7 1/2. Joyner was shocked.

“For the past four years, 57 feet never bought me a cup of coffee,” he said. “Then 55 made the team. That made me upset. I said, ‘Why not go for two events?’ ”

But Joyner is not spending much time jumping. He said he hopes to make an impact in the 110 hurdles, an event that is traditionally one of the strongest in the United States. Roger Kingdom of Pittsburgh holds the world record, 12.92 seconds. And world-class runners Greg Foster, Tonie Campbell, Renaldo Nehemiah and Tony Dees make for a crowded field on any U.S. track.

“I’ve seen Al run the hurdles, and I know he is a very good technical runner,” Griffith Joyner said. “I said, ‘If you really want to run the hurdles, then don’t play around, train for them.’ ”

Despite the talent in U.S. hurdling, Florence, the coach, says her husband can succeed. She said many of the hurdlers lack mental toughness.

“That is the only event where you see the times fluctuate too much,” she said. “I think they try to build up so much animosity between each other when they get in the race, you see hurdles falling on every line.”

Al, who grew up in a rough East St. Louis (Ill.) neighborhood, said the American competition does not worry him. Although he has not run many hurdle races in the last four years, Al said his international experience will guide him.

What Al, always the joker, does worry about is his family’s running prowess.

“My sister beat me, my wife beat me in a race, I just hope my daughter doesn’t grow up to beat her dad, too,” he said.

Right on cue, Mary Ruth gave her father one of those killer smiles, as if to say she was up to the challenge.

Said Al: “Hey, that’s not funny!”