Cosby Is Put in Her Place: a Berth in the State Finals

Jessica Cosby remembers when she was eight years old and afraid of the shotput.

She had already conquered all the sprints in her youth track club, including the 400, the most grueling of them all.

The high jump posed no problems. Neither did the long jump.

But Cosby still had to put the shot in order to win the Rafer Johnson Award, given to any youngster who competed in every event at least once throughout the club season.

“I was scared of that big metal ball,” Cosby said. “What if I had hurt somebody with it or dropped it on myself?”

Looks like Cosby, now at Granada Hills High, has grown up.

She won her second consecutive City Section championship in the shotput with a mark of 43 feet 4 1/2 inches, more than five feet ahead of the second-place finisher Thursday at Birmingham High.

Also an established basketball player at Granada Hills, Cosby, a sophomore, automatically qualified for the State track and field championships next Saturday at Cerritos College.

Not bad for someone who discovered the shotput by default--”an accident,” she said--and is still learning.

Cosby, who will turn 16 on Sunday, has enlisted the aid of throwing coach Barry Ross, who saw Cosby at a meet last year and offered his services.

Right away, Ross told Cosby to stop dragging her feet, to pick them up and move them during her glide.

He also helped Cosby, a left-hander, straighten out her approach. She had been spraying the shot to the left, but now has better balance.

Ross also made sure that Cosby began to enter the high-profile meets.

Cosby said that her coach at Granada Hills, Malcolm Thomas, who just completed his first season, did not allow any of the Highlanders to compete in meets outside of the conference.

“I was so upset with everything that was happening that I almost quit track,” Cosby said. “But this is my reward in the end.”

Cosby entered the competitive Arcadia Invitational earlier this month and finished fifth.

“The maturity to stand in there with some of these seniors is tough enough, but she’s phenomenal,” said Ross, who was a discus thrower at Cal State Northridge in the early 1970s.

The shotput isn’t the only event in which Cosby competes.

She ran a decent wind-aided time of 12.63 in the 100-meter at last week’s City prelims, but failed to advance.

Then there are her basketball skills.

A two-time All-City 3-A Division selection as a guard-forward, Cosby averaged 19.8 points and 14.3 rebounds per game last season for the Highlanders, who lost in the semifinals to Fairfax.

She already has received letters from several Division I colleges interested in both her basketball and shotput skills.

A decision ultimately will have to be made: What to do at the next level?

“I get that question a lot,” she said, before tactfully answering.

“When you excel at two things, it’s going to make it hard at which one you like best, because you’re good at both of them.

“It would be nice if I get to do both, but I don’t know if that will happen.”

In the near future, she plans to devote serious time to lifting weights. She might also entirely change her approach, adding more power by moving from a glide to a spin.

Said Cosby: “I have two more years, so I still have stuff to look forward to.”