IF YOU ASK how life is going for Alyssa Jones (Southridge, Miami) in her frosh fall at Stanford, the No. 1 HS All-America in the long jump has her answer ready.
“I’m doing pretty well,” she says. “I definitely love the academics and being around a bunch of other students who are really academically, I guess, actively awesome. Some of the things my classmates have done are really cool. And so definitely glad I chose Stanford because this was the environment I wanted when it came to my college experience.”
Athletic considerations, of course, were weighted heavily also in the college choice for Jones, who additionally earned a pair of No. 2 All-Am ratings in the LJ and high jump in ’21. The prospect of rubbing shoulders with others putting out top performances on the track and field proved to be a powerful draw as well.
“I got to see a few of the other commitments before I did my commitment,” Jones says. “So seeing Juliette [Whittaker] commit, Roisin [Willis], Caroline [Wells] and all of them, I was kind of looking forward to joining this class. In addition to other runners we already have on the team, it feels like we’re building up.”
Jones — who won 4 State titles her senior year (100, 200, HJ, LJ) after scoring 3 as a junior — gleaned another clue coach J.J. Clark’s Cardinal squad was a comfortable fit when she made her campus recruiting visit.
“One thing Stanford really put out that none of the other schools kind of did,” she says, “was a sense of I guess realism because when I went to Stanford’s locker room, it was showing that they were actually training. There were clothes everywhere, but it showed that it was real while other locker rooms were like all perfectly pristine and obviously made up for the recruits.”
Clark laughs upon hearing this last comment. “They study in their locker room, it’s a place where they meet and it’s a real locker room,” he says. “I didn’t know that was a factor, the locker room, but I thought maybe it might have been some of the other things that we could offer.”
Sometimes an arguably mundane detail moves the heart. The approach of Stanford jumps/multis coach Arthur “Iggy” Ignaczak spoke to Jones’s head.
“Coach Iggy, he broke it down,” Jones says. “He brought a paper out, and of course cuz of the academic part of Stanford it was kind of…
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