Jumping Back Into The Spotlight Ewu’s Gifted Athlete Broussard Focuses On Pelluer Invitational
Seville Broussard, although gifted with an abundance of charm and a hair-trigger grin, can nonetheless pinpoint one bad relationship:
With the long jump.
The estrangement is permanent and irreconcilable.
“Let’s just say we have a real mutual dislike,” Broussard said of the event.
Broussard was one of the most promising athletic prospects to enter Eastern Washington University, breaking the school record in the high jump by going 5 feet, 11-1/4 inches almost the minute she walked on campus last year.
But her first attempt at long jumping set her onto an unsavory and painful detour.
As she landed in the pit during an indoor meet, Broussard looked down and saw her right foot dangling up in the neighborhood of her lap.
“I knew that wasn’t right,” Broussard said.
A torn anterior cruciate ligament required reconstructive surgery and agonizing hours of rehabilitation.
That produced pain.
The comeback, meanwhile, has produced anguish.
“I just cry a lot,” Broussard said as she took a break from preparations for Friday evening’s Pelluer Invitational meet at EWU’s Woodward Stadium.
“At the beginning of this season, my timing was so far off it seemed like nothing was coming together,” she said. “I did 5-4 two weeks in a row and I was like, oh, man, no, this can’t be.”
The frustration dipped to a tolerable level now that she’s back up to the 5-8 range and running on the Eagles’ short relay.
Comforting from friends has helped, but perhaps not as much as the counsel of her mother.
“My mom always sends me Bible scriptures and it helps,” she said. “Somehow, she always seems to pick out one that helps with whatever happens to be going through my head at the time.”
As a prep out of Walla Walla, Broussard appeared unbeatable. She scored a total of 91 points in state track meets, winning the high jump and also winning both hurdle events in state-record times as a senior.
EWU men’s coach Stan Kerr, who tutors the jumpers of both sexes, is amazed by Broussard - despite the fact that she’s not yet back to full strength.
“I have to keep reminding myself that she’s a freshman because she’s such a marvelous athlete,” Kerr said.
Kerr has kept the focus of Broussard’s season on the high jump, although she’s also returning slowly to the high hurdles.
“Her knee is sound, what she’s working on now is building back her strength and her confidence,” Kerr said.
Will he ask her to try the long jump?
“Oh no. She’s funny. Anytime she even walks by the (long jump) pit she takes a little detour,” Kerr said. “She says that the pit is not her friend.
Pelluer meet
Not a bad entry list, with a world-champ decathlete (Dan O’Brien), a high jumper who once cleared 7-8-1/2 (Brent Harken) and one of the best heptathletes in the country (Gea Johnson).
Throw in 10 regional college teams and the 24th annual Pelluer Invitational on Friday should be extremely competitive.
Field events start at 1:30 p.m. with action on the track getting going at 4.
While Washington State will send most of its performers to Cheney for the Pelluer, a handful will travel to Philadelphia for the Penn Relays.
Freshman weight thrower Ian Waltz and hurdler Dominique Arnold will compete in individual events, with several middle-distance performers lined up for relays.
No Slacker
WSU came out of the Mount San Antonio College Relays with several impressive marks.
Perhaps the most startling was that 25-0 long jump of sophomore Leo Slack.
That effort, the best in a series that included five leaps of 24-6 or better, was almost a foot beyond his previous best.
“He’s something - a real good competitive talent,” WSU coach Rick Sloan said of Slack.
Slack, a promising decathlete, is entered in five events Friday.
Sloan’s freshmen weight men had good efforts at Mt. SAC, with Waltz PR-ing in the shot (56-8-1/2) and discus (186-11), and Kevin Moore getting a best in the discus at 171-5.
, DataTimes MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: COMING UP Pelluer Invitational will begin Friday at 1:30 p.m. at EWU