Florence Delorez Griffith Joyner, also known as Flo-Jo, was an American track and field athlete and the fastest woman ever recorded. She set world records in 1988 for the 100 m and 200 m. During the late 1980s, she became a popular figure due to both her record-setting athleticism and eclectic personal style.
Buchanan County is located in the U.S. state of Missouri. As of the 2020 United States Census, the population was 84,793. Its county seat is St. Joseph. When originally formed in 1838, the county was named Roberts County, after settler Hiram Roberts. It was renamed in 1839 for James Buchanan, then a U.S. Senator and later President of the United States. The county was formed from land annexed to Missouri, as were five other counties.
St. Clair County is the ninth most populous county in Illinois. Located directly east of St. Louis, the county is part of the Metro East region of the Greater St. Louis metropolitan area in southern Illinois. As of the 2020 United States census, St. Clair County had a population of 257,400, making it the third most populous county in Illinois outside the Chicago metropolitan area. Belleville is the county’s seat and largest city.
Jacqueline Joyner-Kersee is a retired American track and field athlete, ranked among the all-time greats in the heptathlon as well as long jump. She won three gold, one silver, and two bronze Olympic medals in those two events at four different Olympic Games. Sports Illustrated for Women magazine voted Joyner-Kersee the Greatest Female Athlete of All-Time. She served on the board of directors for USA Track & Field (U.S.A.T.F.), the national governing body of the sport.
Lincoln University is a public, historically black, land-grant university in Jefferson City, Missouri. Founded in 1866 by African-American veterans of the American Civil War, it is a member-school of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund. This was the first black university in the state. In the fall 2023, the university enrolled 1,799 students.
The Illinois High School Association (IHSA) is an association that regulates competition of interscholastic sports and some interscholastic activities at the high school level for the state of Illinois. It is a charter member of the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS). The IHSA regulates 14 sports for boys, 15 sports for girls, and eight co-educational non-athletic activities. More than 760 public and private high schools in the state of Illinois are members of the IHSA. The Association's offices are in Bloomington, Illinois.
Lloyd Eugene Keady is an American Hall of Fame basketball coach. He is best known for his 25 years serving as the head men's basketball coach at Purdue University in Indiana. In his tenure leading the Boilermakers from 1980 to 2005, he went to the NCAA Tournament seventeen times, twice advancing to the Elite Eight.
Alfrederick Joyner is an American track and field coach and former athlete. He was born in East St. Louis, Illinois. He is the 1984 Olympic gold medalist in the triple jump. He was also the coach and husband of the late four-time Olympic medalist Florence Griffith Joyner and is the brother of six-time Olympic medalist Jackie Joyner-Kersee.
The 1984 NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament involved 53 schools playing in single-elimination play to determine the national champion of men's NCAA Division I college basketball. It began on March 13, 1984, and ended with the championship game on April 2 in Seattle. A total of 52 games were played. This was the last tournament in which some teams earned first-round byes as the field expanded to 64 teams beginning in the 1985 tournament when each team played in the first round. It was also the second year with a preliminary round; preliminary games would not be played again until 2001.
Cuonzo LaMar Martin is an American basketball coach and former player who is in his second tenure as the head men’s basketball coach at Missouri State University. He had held that same position from 2008 to 2011. He is the former head coach at the University of Tennessee, University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Missouri.
Troy Buchanan High School is a 3-year public high school in Troy, Missouri, United States that is part of the Lincoln County School District. The school is named after local merchant Alexander Buchanan, who donated a $1,500 endowment and the land for Buchanan College to be built.
Sumner High School is a St. Louis public high school that was the first high school for African-American students west of the Mississippi River in the United States. Together with Vashon High School, Sumner was one of only two public high schools in St. Louis City for African-American students and was segregated. Established in 1875 only after extensive lobbying by some of St. Louis' African-American residents, Sumner moved to its current location in 1908. It has historically also been known as Charles H. Sumner High School, and Sumner Stone High School.
Roy Chester Martin Jr. is a former American sprinter. He is considered one of the greatest high school sprinters in American history, and at the height of his career, he competed for the United States at the 1988 Summer Olympics.
Dawn Harper-Nelson is an American track and field athlete who specializes in the 100-meter hurdles. She was the gold medalist in the event at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games and the silver medalist in the 2012 London Olympic Games and the 2017 World Championships. Harper is the first American 100-meter hurdler to ever win gold at an Olympics and medal in the following Olympics. She is trained by Bob Kersee, husband of Jackie Joyner-Kersee, six time Olympic medalist also from her hometown of East St. Louis, Illinois. She is a member of the 2022 class of the UCLA Athletics Hall of Fame.
Vashon High School is a high school of the St. Louis Public Schools in St. Louis, Missouri. When it opened in 1927, it was the second high school for black students in St. Louis.
East Saint Louis Senior High School is the only high school located in East St. Louis, Illinois. The school serves about 1,438 students in grades 9 to 12 in the East Saint Louis Public Schools district. It was featured in the Jonathan Kozol book Savage Inequalities. In 1998, East St. Louis Lincoln High School consolidated with East St. Louis High.
Brittany Borman is an American track and field athlete who competes primarily in the discus and the javelin throw. She is a four-time NCAA Track and Field Champion, winning the javelin in 2010, 2011, and 2012, and the discus in 2010. In 2012, she won the US Olympic Trials in the javelin and represented the United States at the 2012 Summer Olympics. She also represented the US at the 2016 Olympic Games.
Jon Harris is an American college basketball coach who is the former men's head coach at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville (SIUE), an NCAA Division I program competing in the Ohio Valley Conference (OVC). A high school star at Edwardsville High School, Harris played collegiately at Marquette University. He was named the SIUE Cougars' new coach in April 2015 after spending thirteen years as an assistant in five different Division I programs. On March 11, 2019, SIUE announced that Harris' contract had not been renewed.
The East St. Louis Railers Track Club are a track team of East St Louis, Illinois They are known as the club which gave Jackie Joyner-Kersee her start.
Ida "Tina" Hutchinson is an American former professional basketball player. She played two years of college basketball for the San Diego State Aztecs. Hutchinson led the Aztecs to their first NCAA tournament in 1984, when she set NCAA freshman records for highest scoring average and most total points in a season. She was also named first-team all-conference in the Western Collegiate Athletic Association (WCAA). Hutchinson left San Diego State after suffering a major knee injury in her sophomore year. Afterwards, she played pro ball in Europe.
