At this time a year ago, Chelsea Johnson was contemplating
leaving track and field.
After a breakout sophomore campaign a season earlier, during
which she won an NCAA pole vault title and set the collegiate
record, Johnson failed to place at the NCAA Championships during a
frustrating junior year.
Johnson had surgery on her left knee to repair a torn ligament
in the fall of 2004, just before the start of the outdoor season,
and she struggled to regain her strength and mobility.
For perhaps the first time in her athletic career, she
experienced what it was like not to be the best.
After the season of setbacks culminated with her early exit from
nationals, Johnson contemplated walking away from the sport she had
once dominated.
Luckily for UCLA, she decided to stay on the runway. When the
NCAA Outdoor Championships for track and field start today in
Sacramento, Johnson will finish up a year in which she reclaimed
her dominant position from seasons past and will try to capture her
third individual title.
Johnson said she used last summer as a time for meditation.
“After I did really badly at nationals, I basically just
took some time off by myself and thought about whether or not I
wanted to continue vaulting,” Johnson said. “I would
have had to rededicate myself over the summer and see if this was
really what I wanted.”
During her time away, however, Johnson felt pride’s tug.
She thought of the hours she had put into pole vaulting and became
determined to regain the form that nearly landed her a spot on the
2004 U.S. Olympic team.
It wasn’t an easy decision. She knew the transition would
be difficult.
Johnson’s father, 1972 Olympic pole vault bronze medalist
and former world-record holder Jan Johnson, played a key role in
the rebuilding effort, helping his daughter to refocus and prepare
for her senior year.
“The problem was that she had been so good at everything
she had done that after last year, she just lost a huge amount of
confidence,” Jan Johnson said. “I can’t really
take credit for what Chelsea has done. She may think I did
something for her, but she is the one who trained so
hard.”
The results have been nothing short of astonishing this year, as
Johnson has been consistently jumping in the mid- 14-foot range.
She has won every collegiate competition in which she has
participated since her setback at Sacramento last June.
Johnson took the NCAA Indoor title in March and has been
demolishing all competition since.
She even took back her pole vault record of 15 feet, 1 inch,
which for a brief moment belonged to Lacy Jansen.
But Johnson doesn’t simply attribute her senior year to
her training regimen.
After wrestling with the frustration of not being the best,
using competitive fuel to elevate herself has given her a thicker
skin, said UCLA pole vault coach Anthony Curran.
“Chelsea is probably the most competitive athlete I have
ever trained,” Curran said. “Pole vaulting takes a lot
of confidence and a lot of time. Athletes who try to jump high can
fall back onto the runways or into the standards and lose all of
their confidence.
“But Chelsea keeps getting beat up and knocked down and
keeps coming back. Those types of athletes are one in a
million.”
Johnson will be looking to finish her collegiate career by
leading her team to UCLA’s 100th NCAA title.
But the peace of mind the last calendar year has given her goes
beyond whatever this meet’s results turn out to be.
She has used this season as a parable for life, applying what
she has learned beyond the realm of pole vaulting.
“I am much more grateful now because I have been in the
slums,” Johnson said. “Every athlete goes through ups
and downs, and it’s the ones who make it through the downs
that succeed.”
Of course, that isn’t to say Johnson did not leave for
Sacramento with a desire to win. But she will compete with a little
more clarity and perspective than in years past.
“I know I have accomplished a lot of things so far, but I
am not just going to sit here and reflect on them,” Johnson
said.
“My motivation is to win a national title. I want to
remember my senior year by winning,” she said.