Rose Richmond's success in making the U.S. Olympic team inspires the community that helped her reach the goal.
By JON WILSON
Published August 11, 2004
[Getty Images]
Rose Richmond competes in the women's long jump May 22 at the Home Depot Invitational in Carson, Calif. She finished fifth in the first invitational stop on USA Track & Field's 2004 Outdoor Golden Spike Tour, but she made the Olympic team July 24.
[Times photo (1999): Kevin White]
Rose Richmond competes in the triple jump for Lakewood High School in 1999. She won both the long and triple jumps.
ST. PETERSBURG - The Rev. Louis Murphy had finished Sunday's sermon at Mount Zion Progressive Missionary Baptist Church. His text was Nehemiah and his message was about giving hope to the people. Someone handed him a note.
Lifelong Mount Zion member Rose Richmond, it said, had made the United States Olympic team as a long jumper.
Murphy announced it and the congregation shouted and clapped and roared.
Aubrey Richmond, Rose's father, was among the joyful.
Mother Viola Nichols got the news via cell phone as she was leaving her church in Tampa, where she lives.
"I was checking my voice mail. I was sitting in the parking lot and started screaming," said Mrs. Nichols.
It was an occasion for pride and the culmination of a dream that began years ago.
Rose Richmond, 23, started running the Lakewood High School track when she was 3 years old, sometimes joining victory laps when big sister Tracia's relay team would win. Rose is the youngest of five children; by the time she was 6, she was training with the St. Petersburg Striders track club.
"I think we haven't seen her best yet," said David Brown, the longtime Striders coach who was one of Richmond's first mentors.
Brown predicts Richmond will win a medal. "Now that she's gotten to what she's trying to do, the sky's the limit. She can get out there and jump another 1 or 2 feet," he said.
Anticipating such thrills, Aubrey Richmond and Mrs. Nichols are thinking about airline schedules and getting around in Greece, the 2004 Games' host nation. The first long jump round is Aug. 25 in Athens.
Both parents have their passports. Aubrey Richmond is going, said Mrs. Nichols, but her plans are uncertain. "Financially, it's kind of hard for me to say," she said.
She has been contacting travel agencies and prowling the Internet looking for package deals, most of which cost at least $3,000 - not counting food.
"I'm iffy unless a miracle happens," she said.
Mount Zion paid for Rose Richmond's trip to California, where the longest jump of her life earned her a tenuous grip on an Olympic trip.
It was cliffhanger success.
Richmond leaped 22 feet, 21/4 inches July 24 in Carson, Calif. It was enough to put her on the team - provisionally.
A couple of weeks earlier at the U.S. Olympic Trials, she had finished fourth - one place away from being a part of the three-member long jump contingent.
But Akiba McKinney, who finished third, had not achieved the minimum Olympic qualifying standard - 21 feet, 113/4 inches.
If Richmond could hit the standard and McKinney could not, the team berth belonged to Richmond.
Richmond's July 24 jump did it. McKinney had four meets to hit the mark, but failed each time.
The 1999 Lakewood graduate thus became St. Petersburg's second Olympian in the 2004 Games. Sailor Mark Mendelblatt will represent the United States in the Laser.
Richmond's success will "have a tremendous impact on our youth, especially those participating in track and field," Murphy said.
"We need success stories like Rose to say to the children, "You can do it, too,"' Murphy said.
Richmond, who won nine state high school championships and was three times the St. Petersburg Times track and field athlete of the year, earned a scholarship to Indiana University.
Last year, she set an indoor Big Ten conference, school and track record with a long jump of 21 feet, 33/4 inches. She placed second in the 2003 NCAA outdoors championships, jumping 21 feet, 61/4 inches, also a school record.
She also was a member of Indiana's Big Ten championship 4 x 100 relay team that won All-America honors four times in that event.
She is pursuing a masters degree in sport marketing and management at Indiana.
"Rose focused on what she wanted, and she's done so well," her mother said. "I'm just so proud she's keeping up, and in her book work as well. She's getting A's."
