North Texas Jumper Reaches For The Sky

[Eagle-96]

http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/sports/13943800.htm

North Texas jumper reaches for the sky

By JEFF WILSONStar-Telegram Staff Writer

DENTON — She says she’s going to the Olympics in the same tone that a 9-to-5’er says she’s going to work. No big deal. Just a matter of fact.

That’s the only area where North Texas freshman Brandi Stanfield has an advantage over most of her peers.

She’s convinced she will compete in the triple jump at the world’s most prestigious track and field meet before she’s done, whereas others need to be convinced.

“She can be that good,” Mean Green coach Rick Watkins said. “Her potential is, as far as she wants to take it.”

First, though, Stanfield has four seasons of NCAA competition. Year One has been a record-setter so far and could be a landmark one for the Mean Green program.

Only two meets into her freshman season, Stanfield is on the verge of becoming the first UNT athlete to qualify for the NCAA Indoor Championships on March 10-11.

“If I don’t jump any worse than what I’ve already jumped, I think I’ll be OK for the NCAA,” said Stanfield, 18. “I hope it gets better before then, so I can get higher on the list.”

Stanfield is 14th on the provisional qualifiers list with a leap of 42 feet, 6¾ inches. The NCAA took the top 17 triple jumpers last year, and Stanfield can improve this weekend during the Sun Belt Conference Championships in Murfreesboro, Tenn.

Her qualifying leap shattered the UNT record, which she would have broken as a high school senior. Her top prep jump of 42 feet, 5¾ inches was the best in Texas, third-best nationally, in 2005. She won the Class 5A state title and landed a spot on the USA Today All-USA track and field team.

Stanfield had her best performance at the Mike A. Myers Track Stadium in her native Austin, but Texas didn’t recruit her. She wanted to leave Austin anyway, and chose the Mean Green over Miami and Baylor because UNT people are her kind of people.

“It’s about where I’m going to fit in the most,” she said. “I know wherever I go, I’m going to try I hard. I really just didn’t want to be around people where I didn’t think I could grow in four years.”

Before heading up Interstate 35, Stanfield went to the USA Junior Nationals, where she led most of the meet before finishing fourth in an event that Watkins said is the most taxing in track and field.

Stanfield, who also has UNT’s top long jump this season, said she suffers from knee tendinitis. Watkins said that can be offset with building muscles in the knees and improvements in her technique.

“If you don’t do it technically right, it is really bad on your knees,” she said. “I have been slowly trying to add the technique. When you learn technical stuff in practice and then go to a meet, you really don’t think about that. You just try to do whatever you can do to get the furthest that you can get.”

For Stanfield, the furthest is the Summer Games.

[bigrobdsp]

what a great story about a great athelete. she really passed up baylor and Miami to come to UNT? both of those schools have some of the best track and field programs in the nation.