It's arguable that someone who had suffered childhood Polio as Rudolph did while growing up in the rural segregated south during the 1950s, has a lock on most inspirational backstory. Especially after she became one of the greatest Olympic athletes this country has ever produced. But, dominating women's Track and Field in the 1960s after what Wilma Rudolph overcame in Tennessee, is not the only incredible episode in the history of the sport. Not when there is Atascocita High's Ariel Jones. Not when she is running to live, with the truth. Not when her surrogate sister is facing a similar tale.
Recently, there was a piece in Sports Illustrated in which a tri-athlete, a 70 year old tri-athlete-- swimming biking, and running triathlons' athlete--was covered.
Amazing doesn't begin to describe his story when you consider that he also competes with the "handicap" of pushing in a wheelchair, his nearly 50 year old Cerebral Palsy inflicted son. In competition he also swims with his son in tow, and navigates a boat, and drives a bicycle with his son sitting up front. They've been doing this for …nearly 40 years.
However, perhaps the most astonishing part of the story is that while the son feels more "alive" when he and his father are out moving and competing, his father is actually able to be alive at all because of that which he is doing for his son. You see he literally has been running to live. Although, that is becoming more difficult with age and a bad stint impacted heart beginning to seriously slow the man down. However, the heart problem has been there awhile, and the doctors essentially told the man that if not for the fact that he and his son were giving inspiration to the adoring physically disabled and non-disabled public through triathlon competitions, the man would have died many years ago. While age may make it imperative for the man to finally stop competing, beforehand a bad heart literally was overcome by the physical shape he molded for himself by running up mountains, in freezing weather, towing or quickly pushing his son, running, unbeknownst to him, running… to live. That story is repeating itself again, locally.
Enter Ms. Ariel Jones. She walks up to that starting line every time now knowing that she is running to live for herself, and her family and the memories of those in her family that are no longer around to see her. How inspirational is it when you are a freshman runner in high school and while your worries have been subsiding lately with each accomplishment, you know that two of your uncles, and your paternal grandmother all succumbed to Sudden Cardiac Death Syndrome, or how about the fact that your own brother has a heart murmur, the same condition that has visited her own father? Like Wilma Rudolph, it is a hurdle that has been mostly overcome.
Winning three Gold medals at the recent District 14-5A Track and Field meet, with wins in the 300 and 100 hurdles, and a relay triumph in the 4x400, well, that's not the only thing that she has on her plate even with regionals coming up in 2-5A. She also gets to prepare for life after high school, even though she is just in her first year at Atascocita.
"I love to study Health and Science and look forward to taking Chemistry in school, because I want to be a heart surgeon," Ariel Jones says.
Keep in mind that her mother Glenda Jones says that was a decision that her daughter reached in elementary school, well before a sixth grade athletics physical revealed to Ariel that she was embedded in a family that carried a tragic story. After her mother's request to the doctor that there should be a check for heart problems, Sudden Cardiac Death's tale of woe was related to Ariel after her dad filled in the blanks. Her dad's brother while playing basketball with her father suddenly collapsed and was gone before his seventeenth birthday. Her other uncle was gone before his 24 th. birthday, and a grandmother who died in childbirth also became a part of the legacy. By the way, Ariel herself checked out with a clean bill of health.
Ariel's mother Glenda says that at first, when her daughter found out the family's truth, there was trepidation, with every feeling of fatigue met with alarm by the young track star.
"We went to the doctor and made sure it wasn't heart related or even asthma itself causing that tired feeling. In practice she still will pull back when she feels that same fatigue, but she is learning to live with the knowledge," adds Glenda. Ariel is beginning to look at the situation fatalistically with a mature resolve of personal prevention on her end, including eating properly and staying in excellent physical condition. Running keeps her on top of any future health concerns. It's a one day at a time mentality.
"I look at it as a one step at a time (coping with anxiety during a race) and a one thing (challenge of living with the knowledge) at a time way to approach it," Ariel says.
Perhaps, another entity that is making a life of doubt palatable, is friendship, sisterly friendship. Due to family concerns both within the dynamic of marital and health issues--her maternal grandmother's-- Glenda and Ariel moved in with a family that wanted to help. However, the oldest daughter of that family still living at home, Kingwood High's Natasha Tillett is perhaps the biggest assistor of all, even when she too is in need of help from all familial precincts.
"I was coming off of a hard workout last January when I began to see purple spots in my left eye and after my coaches and trainers, listened to my story, they told me to call my parents, "Natasha says.
The emergency room was the next destination and mom, Kimberly was told that Natasha had recovered and was okay. However, just for precaution's sake, the family pediatrician asked for a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan. Results from that test, showed the Tilletts--including Natasha's dad Tracy, sisters Christina and Tiffany, and brother Tracy Jr.-- that their daughter/sister had suffered a stroke. She had also been given a "gift" out of her adversity. She was the new owner of good old fashioned perspective.
"I treasure life more and I don't take it for granted," Natasha says.
She also values the sisterly friendship she has with Ariel Jones and the feeling is mutual.
The two girls, one who is healthy but lives with a dwindling thread of uncertainty, and the other who is trying to recover from an unexpected slap from her anatomy, both enjoy hip hop music, although in that regard, Ariel is more "old school". They also enjoy something else that they have in common, a desire to work in the medical field.
"I like chemistry and I'm thinking about studying Chemical Engineering when I get in college because a technical field like that can make it easier to get into med-school," Tillett says.
Jones meanwhile, will continue to pursue her goal of becoming a heart surgeon. "I want to help people, I want to serve," Ariel says.
Glenda Jones says that spirit of compassion has always been a part of her daughter. What's even more amazing is that unlike some of us, Ariel wouldn't have ever contemplated telling Natasha about that cursed family's history. Ironically, it was when Natasha Tillett was queried by this interviewer that the knowledge of the disease first came to light. Unbeknownst to HighPoints Rob's Roll, Natasha had never been told, a commendable example of how selflessly Ariel lives her life. Glenda concurred with that assessment.
"She knew that Natasha was going through a recovery from the stroke, and Ariel didn't want to worry Natasha and at the same time Ariel and I have been watching over Natasha. I told Ariel to make sure that she was careful in how she dealt with Natasha, and to make sure Natasha was able to recover at her own pace, not to be pushed through the spirit of competition when the two were practicing together. To my daughter's credit she showed the discipline that I so admire and she listened to my advice," Glenda says.
And so what is crystal clear is that the tale of running to live doesn't just flow through one life, it streams through two. And as the two friends, fellow competitors in the hurdles, and interlinked human beings continue to get ready for the regionals--Natasha in the high jump after that foot injury quashed any regional chances in the hurdles competition, and Ariel and her running mates in the relay and of course, Ariel in the individual 300 and 100 hurdles--one more tale of Track and Field's way to reveal character and a searing humanity that runners who burn for competition and its rewards have in abundance, is on display.
Wilma Rudolph move over! After all, the marathon, cross-country, or triathlon course or even the track oval really never ends for those who are running to live, and living to run.
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