Word: als
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...never allowed to concentrate on the 100," she says. "Yet I had the fastest time in America in 1985 and again last year. I was always somewhat overlooked." Her coach, Bob Kersee, had found gold for other athletes, including Jackie Joyner-Kersee, who is Kersee's wife and Al Joyner's sister (making the four of them a sort of First Family of U.S. track). "Bobby told me to go to the trials in the 200," says Flo-Jo. "But Al and I had decided I'd go to the trials in the 100 and 200." After the event, Griffith...
...Joyner is soft-spoken and demure away from competition. She pays fastidious attention to her appearance. In fact, if she has time between heats, she will change not only her outfit but also her nail polish. "I love it when she paints on little palm trees," says an adoring Al. He insists that his wife's departure from Kersee's club will not cause any awkwardness come Thanksgiving Day. Says Al: "Jackie will always be my sister, Bobby will always be my brother-in-law, and Florence will always be my wife...
...that I could jump. That's when I started running and jumping off my porch." A firemen's brigade of siblings used a potato-chip bag to "borrow" sand from the center and install a landing pit off the porch. Jackie's main co-conspirator was her older brother Al, whom she could beat at everything. "I didn't have a big brother," Al says. "I had Jackie." Through a fluttering porch-side window shade, enjoying the sounds of plotting, their father heard 14-year-old Jackie announce one evening that someday she was going to be in the Olympic...
...that time, Kersee was coaching both her and Al, and on a remarkable August night the two schemers from Piggott Avenue made history. Al had all but won the triple jump when Jackie took her mark in the 800-meter run, the finale of the heptathlon. If she could stay within about 15 yds. of the Australian Glynis Nunn, Jackie's lead under the weighted point system would hold up. But her left leg was bound with a hamstring wrap that crippled her confidence more than her stride...
...Jackie reached the final turn, Al was suddenly alongside her, running in silhouette on the grass. By .33 sec., just about a step, she lost the gold medal. Totaling 6,385 points to Nunn's 6,390, Jackie came off the silver stand almost directly into Al's arms. "It's O.K.," he comforted her, and she smiled. "I'm not crying because I lost," she said. "I'm crying because you won." That night in East St. Louis, the streets filled up the way they used to in Detroit after a Joe Louis fight. Everyone came out to sing...