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Reynolds a Dare Devil
by Frank Burlison, Long Beach Press-Telegram
May 10, 2007
LONG BEACH - By the time Jill Reynolds was 2 years old, her parents realized
they'd better involve her with something in which she could channel her,
uh, excess energy or the walls of their home might coming tumbling down.
"She was awesome . . . really spunky," Jeff Reynolds said of
his daughter, a Long Beach State junior, Wednesday afternoon during a
break from his job as an operating engineer for Pacoima-based Champion
Crane. "She seemed to want to climb on everything."
A "Mommy and Me" gymnastics class for Sue Reynolds and her daughter
evolved into 11 years of mostly 40-hour weeks of training in the sport
for Jill, now a 21-year-old Kinesiology major at LBSU.
"I was in the Junior Olympics in Salt Lake City when I was 12,"
she said the other day, matter-of-factly, in between a couple of the classes
that help make up the 18 units she's enrolled in this semester. "That
was an amazing experience."
But she slipped while vaulting when she was 13, rolled some vertebrae
and it was time to pick "a safer sport," she said, laughing.
So then it was on to soccer and tennis and, well, just about anything
else where she could work off the energy via some very aggressive effort.
"I'd hop on a skateboard, skis, motorcycle or dirt bike," she
said. "And our family (which includes older brother Chris, now a
23-year-old senior at San Diego State) was always boating. I'm a daredevil
- I just love heights and speed."
The pursuit of heights and thrills - "Yeah, an adrenaline junkie
is what you'd call me," she said - led her to bungee jumping as a
15-year-old and then sky diving on her 18th birthday, with a somewhat
reluctant dad in tow.
She's still pursuing her conquest of heights as a member of Long Beach
State coach Andy Sythe's track and field program.
Reynolds will attempt to defend the crown she won in the pole vault a
year ago when the Big West Conference Championships get under way Friday
at Cal State Northridge.
She was 24th in the NCAA West Regional Meet last spring with a then-career
best of 12 feet, 6 inches.
Reynolds' best is now 13-1 1/5 (during the March 9-10 Ben Brown Meet in
Fullerton), leaving her just 2 3/4 inches short of the school mark established
five years ago by Connie Jerz.
Not bad for an athlete who admits to standing "5-1 on a good day"
and usually finds herself lining up against competitors who are usually
6 to 9 inches taller than she is.
"Speaking from the perspective of the physics of the event,"
Sythe explained, "the taller, with leverage (on the pole), the better.
It is everything (in the event). And you have to be awfully good at the
`other things' to overcome those physics."
Those "other things" - including speed, strength, determination
and technique - are what will earn Reynolds airfare to Eugene, Ore. (for
the NCAA West Regional meet) in two weeks and, possibly, to Sacramento
for the NCAA Championship meet June 6-9.
"It's a very complex and complicated event, because there are so
many variables that play into it and factor into a bad or good jump,"
she said. "First, you have to be fast. Second, you have to also be
fast while running with the pole. Then, you need the upper-body strength
to bend the pole and get the core of your body upside down and over the
bar."
She smiled.
"They say that, nine times out of 10, the girl who is going to win
is going to be the girl who is tallest and holds the highest on the biggest
pole," she said. "And I'm that one who is the shortest, holding
the lowest on her pole. So, everything else has to be perfect."
Reynolds, whose cousins Brian (crew) and Travis (water polo) are LBSU
athletes, aspires for careers as a Chiropractor (she's toting a 3.5 GPA)
and movie and television stunt double (she's already been on a few auditions),
doesn't know the meaning of "vegging in front of the TV, while dozing
on a couch and munching on a hefty-sized bowl of chips."
There is no time - "Look at this!" she said, flipping the pages
of a day planner crammed with places to be and things to do - or inclination.
"I've always been an overachiever, in terms of time management,"
she said. "It comes from the days of spending six days and about
40 hours a week working out (for gymnastics), going to school and doing
homework.
"A nap? I'd love to have time to take a nap."
Lazy afternoons or evenings pretty much were dashed from any future Jill
Reynolds day planner when someone encouraged to go out for the Valencia
High track and field program as a freshman and then handed her a pole
and said "go for it!"
"I just love it now," she said.
Why?
Well, because it gives her the same feeling she had when she dove out
of a plane for the first (but not last; "I'm going again," she
said, "but it cost a lot - about $180) time and descended to Earth.
"You come out of a cloud (while sky diving) and it's as if you're
just floating," she said. "I get that same feeling when I clear
the bar, see it stay on and I start to fall (into the pit)."
She smiled.
"That," she said, "is what I live for."
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