Throwback Thursday is a DyeStat feature that allows us to remember and celebrate some of the great meets and performances that have been a part of our DyeStat coverage since John Dye founded the site. Thanks to many stories, photos and videos that have been preserved in our archives, we are able to relive and share with you some of the very best of DyeStat.com.

Jackie was GSW's hurdles queen ... despite the fall

By Steve Underwood

2007 GREAT SOUTHWEST | 2008 GREAT SOUTHWEST

The Great Southwest Classic saw a lot of great athletes and great performances in the 100-, 110-, and 300-meter hurdles in the first decade of this new millennium.  Prep superstars like Robert Griffin III, Shalina Clarke, Wayne Davis II, Reggie Wyatt, Kerron Clement, Jason Richardson, and Jasmine Stowers all competed on the University of New Mexico Track and Field Stadium oval, chasing records and titles.

But the 300H race on June 7, 2008, during the 33rd edition of the meet, could have been the best of them all.  DyeStat was on hand, and called what transpired the “pivotal moment” of Saturday’s session.  One main focus of attention was Jackie Coward, the Knoxville West (Tenn.) senior who often competed with Track Knoxville and had already come within .05 seconds of making history earlier that day.  Now three of the country’s 300H top four had lined up and the anticipation was very high.

The gun went off.  “Coward had gotten off to a lightening start in lane five,” we wrote.  “The defending champ and current US#2 rocketed down the backstretch, heading toward the curve. Coward has improved her speed, and has been working on adjusting her steps. Added to the mix was the adrenaline forged from not only having US#1 Donique Flemings and US#4 Ryann Krais in lanes four and three, but also from having already run 13.00w in the 100H an hour earlier, history’s 2nd-best all-conditions performance.

“Coward was stoked.

“Maybe too stoked, it turned out. She hit the fourth hurdle and went down. Thankfully, she wasn’t badly hurt, but she was out of the race.”

There was the instant deflation that comes with a superstar going down.  The race still had a super finish, with Krais nipping Flemings, US#3 41.20 to 41.21.  It was a quite a weekend for Krais, who had already won the heptathlon with history’s #2 all-conditions mark.

But oh, what could have been.  “That hurdle came up too fast,” Coward said afterwards.  “I just didn’t have my steps quite right for the speed I had going ... I think I would have had a nasty time.”

“I was thinking of running in the 39s,” she admits now (the HS record was, and still is, the 39.98 from 2001 by Olympian Lashinda Demus).  “I wanted to really get out.  I had a lot of adrenaline and was probably a little too excited and didn’t rotate fast enough.”

The DNF, however, hardly tarnished Coward’s Great Southwest legacy.  As mentioned above, she had already had one legendary performance – or “nasty time,” if you will – that day.  The 13.00 100H triumph came with an aiding 2.9 wind – though it was debatable how much the wildly fluctuating breeze was actually “aiding” anyone.  Nonetheless, only Candy Young’s legal 12.95 USR from 1979 has ever been – to this day – faster than what Coward ran that afternoon in the ABQ.

“I knew that wind was going to be rough,” she said then. “So I just told myself, ‘Be patient. Stay relaxed. Don’t press.’”

That victory gave Coward three Great Southwest victories in her career.  In 2007, as a junior, she had taken the 100H in 13.31(+0.9w) and the 300H in a US#1 40.83.  At the time, her legal 100H PR of 13.21 was #4 all-time and the 40.83 made her #9 all-time in that event.  To this day, those bests are still #6 and #11 all-time.

So it’s not surprising to find that Coward’s Great Southwest memories are pretty good.  “I loved the meet and I love Albuquerque,” she says now.  She was interviewed this week from Florida, where she now competes for Saucony and just a week ago ran a fine 12.78w for 100H as she prepares for the USATF Championships later this month.  She completed a fine four-year career at Central Florida University last spring, with numerous Conference USA and five first-team All-American honors.

“You knew it was going to be very hot at Great Southwest, at high altitude, and you were going to perform well,” she continues.  “I remember my coach would always say, ‘You’ve got to say hydrated!’  The crowd was nice and the track was fast.”

Coward first came to GSW as a sophomore in 2006, as she took 5th in the 100H and 6th in the 300H.  The aforementioned Clarke won both events that day and Coward remembers how Clarke was on her way to possibly nailing the Demus USR herself when she hit the last hurdle and stumbled – and still ran 40.40 for the victory.  Coward wasn’t stellar that day, but by summer’s end she had run 13.59, 13.27w and 59.31 for 400H in JO meets.

In 2007, Coward became the nation’s top all-around hurdler, rocking the track world indoors with an 8.17 60H USR at Kentucky, a Nike Indoor title at that distance, and a 7.67 over 55H that still stands as #5 all-time.  Outdoors, she was unbeaten by preps at 100H and 300H, and ran well enough at 400H to take the Pan-Am Juniors with a 57.21. 

As former Track Knoxville Coach Charles Ryan points out, no prep is ranked as high on all the prep hurdle all-time lists – from 50H to 400H – as Coward.  “I’m a little biased,” he says, “but ranking in the top 10 all-time (11, actually) in every hurdles event has been done by only one girl.  To me, she stands alone among high school hurdlers.”

The GSW 13.31/40.83 double at GSW in 2007 gave her the Outstanding Performance Award for the meet – an honor she shared with the previously mentioned RGIII, then a Copperas Cove (Texas) junior who went 35.47 over the 300 barriers to just miss a USR himself.

“I remember having my picture taken with him,” Coward says now.

“Jackie was still learning how to run the 300H at that point and to run 40.83 was a huge breakthrough,” says Coach Ryan.  And then regarding the 300H race in 2008: “She was really ready to roll, the very low 40s at least.  She was so fast and so strong and sometimes in the 300H that got her into trouble.  The 39.98 by Demus, that’s one of track’s sacred records.”

As a senior in 2008, Coward beat her own 60H USR at Simplot, with an 8.16, and was having a sizzling outdoor season through Great Southwest.  The ending was bittersweet, however, as she missed making the World Junior team in the 100H and 400H, then didn’t get out of the prelims in the Olympic Trials 100H.

But Coward looks back fondly on her prep days and working with Coaches Ryan and Tyangela Sanders.  “They kept me grounded,” she says.  “They both competed themselves and really helped me to stay focused, especially in these types of big meets.  Track and field is almost all I did in high school and they would remind me how much I sacrificed, to never settle for less, and helped me get the results on the track.”

Coach Ryan says his Track Knoxville program was founded on helping students achieve both on the track and in the classroom, and is proud of sending 18 to D1 programs during his years there.  He now heads up the Academy of Art University program, which won an NCAA D-II championship this spring – powered by former California prep star Vashti Thomas.  He also has fond memories of working with Coward.

“I had Jackie since she was a little kid,” he says.  “I feel like she’s the best all-around high school hurdler ever.  For awhile, she was unaware of how talented she was, but she really built her confidence as an athlete.  She started to own who she was and really live for the big meets and performances ... She has some real athletic gifts, and combined with mental toughness and her work ethic made her the athlete she was.

“But the most important thing is that she’s really learned how to be a student-athlete.  That’s what I’m most proud of.  She’s become a multiple-time collegiate All-American, graduated from college in four years, and is still trying to make her mark and another U.S. team.  I love the girl and her family.”

Indeed, Coward took her outstanding prep credentials into Central Florida, where she worked with Sanders (who became an assistant there) and head coach Caryl Smith Gilbert.

“I wouldn’t change anything for the world,” she says of her college experience.  “Coach Smith Gilbert is phenomenal.  She’s another reason I’m where I am today.  The first two years in college there were a lot of things I wasn’t used to and she kept me going.

“I lost my passion for awhile, but she helped me overcome that, and go back and find out who I was.”

Now Coward looks forward to the weeks, months and years ahead as she trains under Coach Dennis Mitchell.  She will try and qualify for Team USA for the Moscow World Champs at this month’s USATF meet, but realizes she’s still adapting to her first year out of UCF.

“I’m learning a lot,” she says.  “It’s another level of discipline.  My body is my job now ... but I love it.”

Coward also loved her three trips to the ABQ and competing in the Great Southwest Classic.  She won’t forget it ... and fans there who watched in 2006 through 2008 won’t forget her, either.  “It was a great experience to compete there and meet other athletes from all over the country.”

Concludes Coach Ryan, “It was always one of my favorite meets.”