Christy Opara, a 19-year-old from Nigeria who would never have enrolled at Brigham Young University if she'd known about the winters, won the NCAA women's long jump championship Friday night.
In the process, she brought new meaning to the term "long shot." Not only had she been recruited to BYU as a sprinter (and not as a long jumper), and not only had the cold Provo winters aggravated a knee injury and prevented her from regular competition through much of the spring, but she only qualified for the national meet last Saturday in a last-chance qualifier held on the BYU track.In that meet, as the weather started to warm, so did Opara. She delivered a personal-best long jump of 20 feet 9 1/2 inches, making the NCAAs in the nick of time.
She didn't take up long jumping seriously until she arrived at BYU last January. "For some reason, I took a liking to it," she said. "I told the coach (BYU women's track coach Craig Poole) I wanted to jump, and he just looked at me."
But he gave his approval, and instead of a sprinter only, BYU suddenly had a combination athlete on its hands.
That was the good news. The bad news was that Opara was having problems with her knee. After qualifying for the NCAA Indoors in the long jump and the 55-meter dash, she hurt herself sprinting and didn't place in either event. All spring long, as she continued to run, the injury (a strained tendon) lingered, although at the HCAC conference meet, she recovered enough to place third at 100 meters and first in the long jump.
Provo's cold weather did not help her condition, or her mood. Last summer, when she sent off an application for enrollment at BYU, she didn't know about The Greatest Snow on Earth.
Her brother, Omajsemi Oparah, who runs track at the University of Houston and is competing here this week at 400 meters, got Christy the application to BYU.
When Poole found out Christy was interested, so was he. She was the Nigerian junior champion at 100 meters (with a best of 11.6). He sent her a full-ride scholarship, and she rode it to Provo.
In January.
"If they had told me at home (about the cold in Utah), I would not have come," she said matter-of-factly. "At home, it's warm. It never gets lower than 50."
"The coach in Nigeria who made the recommendation for her said she'd do us a good job sprinting," said Poole. "We didn't start working on the long jumping until she asked to try it."
Her talent was considerable, but her form was not. She had trouble timing her steps to hit the take-off board properly. "All season long she did not come within the width of the board," said Poole last night.
So, when last Saturday rolled around and she still hadn't jumped far enough to qualify for the NCAA meet, Poole entered her in the last-chance meet and promptly moved her starting-off point a good two feet farther up the runway. Then he told her to "Go!"
As John Madden would say, "Boom! She qualified for the nationals."
Naturally, Opara was not the odds-on favorite when the finals unfolded Friday night in front of her hometown crowd. (But, then, not that much of a hometown crowd. Few people in the stands knew anything about Christy, and she knew few of them).
It was on her fifth of six jumps that she popped the championship leap. After four medium-range efforts, and four efforts well in back of the board, Poole huddled with her and told her to move her steps up, "and hit the board!"
"Boom, she won the NCAA title."
Her jump of 6.46 meters (21-feet 2 1/2-inches) beat Pam Smith of Northeast Louisiana by one centimeter.
Her newfound fans in the stands went wild.
So did Christy.
"I couldn't believe it. Coach couldn't believe it," she gushed. "I was very, very, very surprised."
Of equal personal significance was the fact that besides being the new American college champion, she beat Beatrice Otondu of Texas Southern, who happens to be the reining Nigerian national women's long jump champion and who jumped 20-3 3/4 last night to finish seventh.
In Christy's hometown of Imo State, Nigeria, that will be big news today.
In her new hometown of Provo, Utah, she's big news.
Big enough that she might stay around for next season? "If I can get used to the weather," she said. "And I'm going to try."