the Olympics, even imagining the possibility motivated her. Besides, hanging out at the community centre and doing sports got her away from home, which she found hugely appealing. Mostly, however, she just wanted to see whether hard work would continue to yield progress. ‘I practised hard, and the results were coming. It took me a while to get out of last place and then sixth place, but the placement didn’t matter to me because I saw my times improving.’
It didn’t take long for people to start recognising Jackie’s potential. ‘People would say, “You’re gifted. You’re talented.” But I really didn’t know what all that meant. I was kind of rough in those days. I would fight another girl because she was seeing my friend’s boyfriend – all kinds of crazy stuff that would get me into trouble. One day the Assistant Principal pulled me off a girl I was fighting and said, “Get up to my office.” When he got there he told me, “You know, we expect better things out of you.” I’ll never forget that. It was like, wow, people see some greatness in me.’
That helped Jackie decide to commit to her training in a serious way. ‘I remember telling my girlfriends when I was in junior high school that I was going to go to the Olympics. They thought I was crazy. From that day on I said to my friends, “No, I can’t meet with y’all.” We were basically a gang, and I just knew that wasn’t good.’
As luck would have it, her school started complying with Title IX, legislation guaranteeing girls the same access to sports as boys, which had been enacted four years earlier, just in the nick of time for Jackie. ‘My first year in high school, which would have been my sophomore year, we couldn’t practise until 6:30 p.m. after the boys finished their practice. My mom, who was really strict, wasn’t going for that. I’m going to come home and then go back up to the school and practise? She wasn’t feeling that at all. My mom was just going to pull me out of sports altogether because her philosophy was that I had to be home before the streetlights came on. Then the coaches started pushing the Title IX issue because they said that wasn’t right. From there, they changed it so that we could practise before the boys. That made a big difference.
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