Henry Jones played in three Super Bowls as a safety for the Buffalo Bills. He was nervous before all of them – but nowhere near as nervous as he was Sunday night.
That’s when he watched his daughter Jasmine compete in the 400-meter hurdles, the last event on the final day of the U.S. Olympic Track and Field Trials. She came in third, good enough to qualify for the Paris Games.
“There’s no question that watching my daughter run in the Olympic trials was more nerve-racking than playing in the Super Bowl,” Henry said with a laugh. “We’re super-excited. It’s really a dream come true.”
He and his wife, Joanna, watched from the stands as their daughter streaked past them at Hayward Field in Eugene, Ore.
“We were sitting on the end of the second curve, so as she came off the curve, we got a very good look at where she was in the race with 110 meters to go,” Henry said. “We had faith and trust in her coaches and her preparation.”
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Jasmine had won the 400-meter hurdles at the NCAA championships on the same track weeks earlier for the University of Southern California. On Sunday she was third behind Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, who broke her own world record with a time of 50.65 seconds, and USC teammate Anna Cockrell.
“Jasmine won the NCAAs and she just keeps getting better and better,” Henry said.
Her time of 52.77 seconds Sunday is a personal best.
“I think I ran faster than (Jasmine's) pace just trying to get to her (after the race),” said Joanna, herself a sprinter back in the day. She ran the 100 meters, 200 meters and relays at the University of Arizona. And even though she wasn’t good enough to run in the Olympics, she did have a star turn at the 1996 Atlanta Games.
At the opening ceremony, a set of runners carried flags representing each city that had hosted the Olympics in the modern era. Joanna carried the Atlanta flag, waving it proudly for the cheering crowd.
“They called it ‘The Run Through Time,’ ” Joanna said. “That was magical for me, but it is just a drop of how amazing it is going to be for Jasmine.”
On Monday afternoon, Henry and Joanna were waiting for a flight back to Atlanta. That’s where they met – at a gym, of course, while they were both working out. Their 25th wedding anniversary was in May. Now they will go to Paris for a late celebration in that other City of Light.
Their daughter Jada is a hurdler, too. She ran at Harvard, got her degree and then ran as a graduate student at UCLA, where she earned a master’s degree in public policy. That meant running against her little sister at archrival school USC.
Jasmine is majoring in biological sciences with a minor in musical theater.
“Theater is her other passion,” Joanna said. “She sings and acts and dances. We don’t know how she fits everything into a day.”
Henry, an All-Pro safety for the Bills, played 10 seasons in Buffalo, then one season each with the Minnesota Vikings and Atlanta Falcons.
“I was planning on having Jasmine in Buffalo,” Joanna said, “but then Henry got released.”
Henry is a teacher and track coach at Greater Atlanta Christian School, where he coached his daughters in the hurdles. Joanna is a personal trainer and designer. They have not yet met Mary McLaughlin, the mother of Sydney, who won gold in Tokyo in the 400 meters three years ago.
Mary grew up in the Town of Tonawanda and ran track at Cardinal O’Hara High School in the 1970s – on the boys team. (O’Hara didn’t have a girls team yet; she was Mary Neumeister at the time.)
“That’s pretty awesome,” Henry says. “I hope to meet her in Paris, and we can talk about those Bills teams back in the ’90s.”
In 2019, Jasmine was the nation’s best high school hurdler at 100 meters. Now she is the nation’s best college hurdler at 400 meters. And she is on her way to Paris.
“I’ve coached her since she was a little kid,” Henry told me then. “Speed, power, technique, athletic ability – they all come together in the hurdles.”
Now they will all come together in the Olympic Games.
Who can keep up with these Joneses?