By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Foundation

When Baylor's Stacey Bowers Smith won the NCAA national championship in the triple jump in 1999, she knew it was in her hands. Ultimately, if it came down to a last jump, it was on her and no one else. Sitting in the stands as a coach, though, the stress and nerves of watching her athletes' last shot, last attempt, are far greater.

"I go through so many emotions," said Smith, now in her 15th year coaching jumpers at her alma mater. "When it gets down to a last jump, I can't even tell you really what's going on at that point, because I'm like, `Just don't foul.' You have all kinds of things going through your head. You're like, `Just finish the jump! Just finish the jump!'''

Two weeks ago, at the NCAA West Preliminary Rounds in Austin, Bowers had double the agony and stress as triple jumpers Felix Obi and Rachel Toliver both had it come down to their last attempt to qualify for this week's NCAA Outdoor Championships in Eugene, Ore.

Obi, the 2014 NCAA Indoor champion, went from 26th to eighth with a final jump of 53 feet even. And Toliver had an even more dramatic finish, jumping from 33rd all the way to third with a mark of 44-2.

"That was probably the most emotional jump I've ever had, to be honest," said Obi, who ranks third nationally with a school-record mark of 54-8 ¼ that came over two months ago in his only other triple jump competition this season at Texas Relays. "I just stayed relaxed, because I was looking around at everybody else and saw how tense they were. And I was like, `That's not good for me.'

"When you try to perform tense, you're not going to be able to open up, you're not going to be able to remember anything you need to do. I told myself, `Just relax.' Once I did that, I felt pretty good."

That's the consistent message from Smith to Obi, Toliver and Brianna Richardson, a trio of senior triple jumpers that all qualified for the NCAA Championship semifinals.

"When I over-think things, it doesn't really go too well for me," said Toliver, a second-year transfer from Hawaii who's making her first appearance at the national meet. "Coach Stacey is always telling me, `Rachel, just leave your head at the side of the runway and just run.' At the end of the day, it's just muscle memory. I know what I need to do. Sometimes, I just mentally get in the way of myself."

Baylor is one of just two schools that have as many as three triple jumpers advancing to nationals, with Florida qualifying two men and two women.

"They represent a little bit of who we are as a team, I think, in terms of perseverance and never giving up, not feeling sorry for yourself and fighting through adversity," head coach Todd Harbour said of the three triple jumpers. "A lot of them have just battled and battled and battled, and here we are, getting ready to hopefully finish on a good note."

Obi, in particular, has battled through adversity since suffering a knee injury on his record-setting jump of 54-5 ¼ in winning the 2014 NCAA indoor title as a sophomore. Since then, he's won three of his five Big 12 championships, but has finished 10th at his last three NCAA Championships and has never made it to the finals at the outdoor nationals.

"It's something that I am determined to break," he said, "because I'm a firm believer that you can control your own destiny. With my attitude and all the training I've had and my faith in God, I'll be OK."

The week after breaking his own outdoor school record at Texas Relays, Obi suffered cartilage damage in his right knee while competing in the long jump at the Baylor Invitational, forcing him to miss his last Big 12 meet. He didn't return until the NCAA West meet two weeks ago.

"I'm learning each day how to deal with it and what helps it better during my treatment afterward," said Obi, who will likely have surgery after the season. "After jumping, the day it did swell up, I guess I ice-bathed it instead of doing compression, and it swelled up a little bit. So, I guess I need to actually compress it first, then I can ice-bath it the next day."

Harbour said Obi probably shouldn't even be jumping, "but he's a senior and he wants to finish it out." "You only get three attempts at the regional meet," Harbour said. "So, for him to get it on his last jump, that was amazing."

It's been a long road back for Richardson, a two-time All-American who sat out the 2016 season after pulling her hamstring on her first jump at the 2015 NCAA Outdoor Championships and placing 10th. It wasn't until that summer that she also found out she had a stress fracture.

"Our option was to either rest her or have surgery," Smith said. "And just me, knowing that there's life after this, we just didn't feel right with her having to put a rod in her leg for the rest of her life. . . . We just said, `Hey, let's rest this thing and see what happens.' We've been really careful with her this year, really slow in bringing her along in workouts and stuff. But, she's coming along now. She's starting to open up and blossom now."

That was certainly the case at the NCAA West meet, when Richardson recorded three straight jumps over 43 feet and finished seventh at 43-7.

"Coming into the season, I was like, `I'm either going to go for it, or it's just going to have to come to an end,''' said Richardson, who finished sixth at the 2014 NCAA Outdoor Championships and fifth at the 2015 NCAA indoor meet. "As it was getting closer to the season, I was getting very nervous, because I hadn't jumped in over a year. I was like, `I'm not really sure how this is going to go, but we're going to try it out and see.' I didn't have the best indoor season. But just the fact that I was out there triple-jumping again helped me get my confidence back." '

Toliver won the Big West Conference title as a sophomore at Hawaii. But, when the school eliminated the communication science disorders program she was studying due to budget cuts, the Los Angeles native decided to transfer back to the mainland.

"I really think Baylor found me, in a sense," said Toliver, an eighth-place finisher at both Big 12 meets this season after a third-place showing at last year's indoor meet. "I was going through all my old letters that I got in high school. I came across Baylor's and was like, `I don't even remember getting a letter from this school.' Actually, I think I must have misplaced it, because I never even opened it. After that, I got in touch with Coach Stacey as soon as possible."

Coming to Baylor with a PR of 41-9 ¼, Toliver says Obi was the first one to notice that "my bounding wasn't right."

"He was like, `Umm, you're not quite doing it right,''' she said. "The whole time, I thought I was bounding right . . . It was just learning about my second phase, tweaking some things, which hasn't been easy. But, now that I'm starting to master it, it's exciting."

Going into the NCAA Championships, Richardson (44-7) and Toliver (44-5 ¼) are ranked seventh and eighth, respectively.

"I'm going to tell all three of them, `We need to bring back some hard metal,''' Smith said. "Rachel, this will be her first time ever at the NCAA meet. So, at first, I've got to prepare her for what she's going to see and what's going to happen. Bri and Felix have both been there, and they've already told me, `Coach, I'm not finishing 10th.' . . . I know their heads are in the right place. I know they're going to do well. I just hope they finish in the top eight -- I'll take top three -- just to see them get on the podium for the last time."