In the latest issue of The Bootleg Magazine, we released
the 30 finalists for The Bootleg Honor Roll award for the 2007/2008
school-year.
The criteria are as follows:
Each academic year, The Bootleg's Honor Roll will
recognize the top ten Stanford student-athletes who have performed at an
exceptional level, with athletic accomplishments that are both extraordinary and
inspirational. While achieving athletic success, these athletes should
also have displayed uncommon leadership, sportsmanship and respect towards their
fellow teammates and opponents. Finally, these honorees' performances and
actions should also demonstrate their love for their particular sport as well as
their school pride, the famed “Spirit of Stanford.”
During the months of June and July, we are releasing the
10 winners of this prestigious award, one by one. We have previously
recognized baseball’s Jason Castro, gymnastics’ David Sender, swimming’s Julia
Smit and Paul Kornfeld and soccer’s Rachel Buehler as amongst this year’s
winners. Our sixth announced member of The Bootleg's 2007-08 Honor Roll is
track’s
Erica
McLain.
Honor Roll Winner: Erica McLain
Performance in the clutch. It’s a thin line separating
our heroes from our goats, Chris Hernandez from Chris Webber, Tiger Woods from
Jean Van de Velde, Adam Vinatieri from Scott Norwood. And, once again, jumper
Erica McLain stakes her spot on TheBootleg’s Honor Roll for clutch performance
on the track.
-------------------------------------------
This past May, it was McLain’s sixth and final attempt
at the triple jump at the NCAA Track & Field Championships her senior year.
It was her last attempt as a college athlete to capture an NCAA Outdoor title in
her best event. And the senior from Plano, Tex. left no doubt.
McLain leapt 47-11, beating the field by nearly two feet and,
were it not for a disqualifying tailwind, setting an American record in the process.
With the Herculean jump, the Stanford women finished sixth in the nation and
McLain graduated Stanford a three-time national champion. After taking fourth
nationally with a personal-best long jump of 21-6.25, McLain also leaves the
Farm a 12-time All-American.
McLain grabbed the second of those national titles just
months earlier, helping Stanford claim fifth at the NCAA Indoor Championships in
Fayetteville, Ark. She jumped a then-personal-best 46-7.25 to become the first
Stanford female to win the same event twice indoors and just the seventh
Stanford women's track athlete to win multiple national titles. At the time,
McLain’s distance was also the American-best for 2008.
In 2007, McLain won her first national title with a
then-personal-best 45-7.75 in the triple jump at NCAA Indoors. The summer after
freshman year, McLain became the U.S. Outdoor triple jump champion with an
American junior record leap of 45-11.75.
Even when she wasn’t winning national-level competitions, McLain managed
to make quite the name for herself at Stanford. She is the only woman in
Pac-10 history to win back-to-back long and triple jump titles. (And, yes,
track historians, seven-time Olympic medalist Jackie Joyner Kersee went to UCLA.) McLain
finished second and third in the triple and long, respectively, at NCAAs in
2007. Academically, McLain earned multiple All-Conference honors for her studies
of art and communications at Stanford, with an emphasis in sports photography.
(In fact, we'd chit-chat at football halftimes; she shot photos of the games
for the Athletic Department. Ironically, most of press box had no idea who she was.)
But McLain’s most important competition is yet to come.
She was the first Stanford track athlete to qualify for the Olympics with a
triple jump of 45-9.75 at the Olympic Trials in Eugene, Ore. in late June, just
weeks after graduating Stanford.
-------------------------------------------
McLain, by the way, doesn’t as much deserve a spot on
this Honor Roll as she does embody the concept. Consider her spring, which
features world-class performances competing for time, often comedically so, with
the daily life of a Stanford senior.
March 15:
Capture the NCAA Indoor triple jump
title.
May 31: Leave NCAA West Regionals early to catch a Burbank-Oakland flight in time
for senior formal. (Her coach called to let her know she had
won.)
June 14:
Capture the NCAA Outdoor triple jump
title.
June 15:
Officially graduate from Stanford. [I assume she couldn't
attend.]
June 29:
Qualify for the Olympic
Games.
August: Compete in the Olympics.
It sounds like something out of a University ad or cheesy
Hollywood script, but, right now, it’s Erica McLain’s life.
Congratulations to her, and TheBootleg.com wishes her all the best in China.
Are you fully subscribed to The
Bootleg? If not, then you are missing out on all the top Cardinal
coverage we provide daily on our award-winning website. Sign up today for the
biggest and best in Stanford sports coverage with TheBootleg.com
(sign-up)!