The great leap forward

Emily Forsythe could jump after all.

She didn’t know if she could, nor did she care when she took up high jumping as a freshman at Crescenta Valley High.

“[High jumping] was just something to do [in high school],” Forsythe recalled. “It was where all of the athletes went when they weren’t in season.”

Forsythe was undoubtedly a polished athlete on the basketball court.

But slowly she began to think of herself as a high jumper.

First, she became the top high jumper at Crescenta Valley. Then one of the elite leapers in Southern California. Then the state. Then Long Beach State. Then in the NCAA Regionals.

What started as just something to do became something that Forsythe excelled at.

Five years after she left Crescenta Valley as one of its top track and field athletes, Forsythe will end her collegiate career as “the perfect athlete,” in the words of Long Beach State Coach Andy Sythe.

“She was a good jumper, she had the talent, she had the frame and certainly, the academics,” Sythe said of his captain, who’ll compete in today’s NCAA Division I Championships in Sacramento. “She was the whole package.

“She’s left an impact on her performance and an impact on the team’s performance.”

Today marks Forsythe’s second appearance in a NCAA Championship, as she also advanced to the meet as a freshman.

Whether her collegiate career ends today or later in the week in the four-day championship, Forsythe, ranked 27th nationally, will walk away with accolades that go beyond the height of a bar.

“In the past two years, I would call her my assistant high jumping coach,” said Long Beach jumping Coach Dave Rodda, who has coached track and field at the regional, national and international levels for the past 34 years.

“She’s helped our program emerge and develop and she always had everything in perspective. She knew what was important in her life.”

Two weeks ago, what was important in Forsythe’s life was moving to Oklahoma to start her career in business. She was set to move to her former home state to be with her family and was ready get on with her life after Long Beach State.

So, Forsythe went to the NCAA Regionals in Utah expecting the event to be her last as a collegiate athlete.

“I didn’t have my best season and I knew I could start my life outside of track,” said Forsythe, a four-time All-Big West Conference performer who won the high jump this season at the conference meet to reach her third NCAA Regional.

Forsythe impressed her high jump coach with what she did next.

She found herself in a jump-off with two other athletes and needed to clear 5-7 to advance to the NCAA Championships.

After she cleared the height and the other two competitors missed, Forsythe was headed to Oklahoma ? but not without a pit stop in Sacramento.

“The jump she made was a beautiful jump,” Rodda said.

Added Forsythe, who placed fifth in the CIF-State Meet in her senior year: “I knew I could not care and miss it and move on with my life. But I didn’t want to be that [athlete] who missed.”

That attitude came from years of developing a passion for high jumping that she never thought she had.

“You develop a passion for the friendship and the hard work and the discipline and the time it takes,” Forsythe said. “I’m going to miss it.”