Tough Keeping Up With This Jones

In 1989, Jolanda Jones of Houston became the first athlete to win three heptathlons at the NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships. 

Jones’s victory in Provo 31 years ago was the most comfortable of her three NCAA titles, winning by 168 points – but her performance two years earlier in Baton Rouge may have been her most impressive.

And, yet, even though she first scored more than 6000 points in the 1987 NCAA meet, the mark didn’t seem to matter.

“I’ll take the win,” Jones told Ruth Laney for Track & Field News. “That’s all I wanted, the win.” 

Why was the win so special? After all, her score of 6068 was a PR by 242 points and made Jones then just the meet’s second over 6000 points, along with Jackie Joyner of UCLA. 

Jones revealed the answer after Day 1, when she led by 25 points. 

“I have tendinitis in my left knee,” she explained to Laney. “I laid off training in the last two weeks. But I’ll go all-out tomorrow. I’m going to try to PR in the long jump and half and will just have to pray in the javelin – it’s my worst event.”

Jones’ long jump was solid at 6.32m (20-9) – less than inch off her best – but her prayers were answered in the javelin with a PR 38.48m (126-3), far enough that a relatively easy 800 (for her) of 2:17.87 generated more than enough points for the win and huge PR score. 

After redshirting in 1988 to concentrate on the Olympic Trials – where she fell at the first barrier in the 100-meter hurdles and didn’t finish – Jones came back in 1989 for her record third NCAA heptathlon win at 6022.

Could there have been a fourth NCAA heptathlon title for Jones, who also won in 1986? No one will ever know, as Jones didn’t compete in the heptathlon in the 1985 NCAA meet as a freshman. However, three weeks after the meet, Jones was second in The Athletics Congress national championships with 5765 points – the most by a collegian that year – and beating the NCAA champ, Lauri Young of Louisiana-Monroe, who was fourth. 

Prior to her career as a Cougar, Jones was a Texas high school legend, single-handedly giving Elsik High of Alief (near Houston) a share of the 1984 Class 5A state team title by winning the 400, 800 and high jump and finishing second in the long jump.

As a post-collegian, Jones became a councilwoman for the City of Houston from 2008-11. Fans of the TV show Survivor may remember her appearance in the 2005 airing of the Palau series.