UCLA’s Griffith Sprinted Into History

Before she was known as FloJo, she was Florence Griffith.

Her fingernails were only beginning to grow long and her outfits were strictly UCLA-issued blue and gold.

But there was no mistaking Griffith’s athletic style, initially displayed with speed and power in becoming the first – and still only – woman to win 200-meter and 400-meter crowns at the NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships.

Is one of her titles better than the other?

In 1982 – when the NCAA included women’s events for the first time – Griffith lined up in the 200 a lane inside of Nebraska’s Merlene Ottey, who had not lost a collegiate half-lap race in three years. Despite a wet track that made for cautious curve running, Griffith stayed close enough to Ottey and won in the closing strides, clocking 22.39 ahead of Ottey (22.46).

A year later, Griffith and Ottey were dueling again at the NCAA Outdoor Championships – this time in the first major 400 for both, and in a field that arguably rates as the best even to this day. On the final turn Griffith took the lead and won in 50.94, holding off two-time NAIA champ Easter Gabriel of Prairie View A&M (50.99) as Ottey followed in 51.12. The field was so rich to also include the defending NCAA champ and two U.S. winners in the event.

In both the 1982 and 1983 NCAA meets, Griffith was UCLA’s second-highest scorer – just behind future sister-in-law Jackie Joyner – as the Bruins won the first two NCAA women’s team crowns.

Griffith, born and raised in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles, impressed a young coach named Bob Kersee, who began coaching her in 1979 at Cal State Northridge through her UCLA days and forthcoming Olympic glory.

As Kersee related in a 1984 feature for Track & Field News, “Florence has what I call a ‘strange’ burning desire. I mean, it was hard for me to understand her, because with her quietness and her shyness and her beauty, she doesn’t seem like she can have a killing instinct. But when Florence sets her mind to do something, she gets the job done.”

Griffith’s achievements – let alone her nails and flashy outfits – only got better after college.

A few years after wrapping up her collegiate career, Griffith married 1984 Olympic triple jump gold medalist Al Joyner and then became forever remembered as FloJo with her performance at the 1988 Seoul Olympic Games. FloJo won four medals – three gold – and her world records in the 100 (10.49) and 200 (21.34) remain unbroken to this day.

Unfortunately, on this day in 1998, FloJo died from a heart seizure caused by a congenital abnormality.