GRIFFITH JOYNER, Florence Delorez ("Flo Jo")

(b. 21 December 1959 in Los Angeles, California; d. 21 September 1998 in Mission Viejo, California), flamboyant track athlete and champion sprinter who was the first American woman to win four medals in one Olympics.

The seventh of eleven children, Griffith Joyner was four when her parents, Robert, an electronics technician and Florence, a seamstress, divorced. Mother and children moved from the Mojave Desert, where the Griffith family had been living, to the Jordan Downs housing project in the Watts section of Los Angeles. Griffith Joyner began running track at age seven at the 92nd Street Elementary School. She said that she ran because she could just "get in the wind" and because it helped her to stand out from her siblings. When visiting her father in the Mojave Desert, she chased jackrabbits to improve her speed. In elementary and junior high school, Griffith Joyner competed in the 50- and 70-meter dashes at events held by the Sugar Ray Robinson Youth Foundation for disadvantaged youth. When she was fourteen, she won first place for two consecutive years at the annual Jesse Owens National Youth Games. Graduating from Jordan High School in 1978, not only had she set school records in sprinting and the long jump, but she had begun to forge her own unique colorful style in clothing, hairstyles, and fingernail decorations.

Griffith Joyner entered California State University at Northridge in 1978, dropping out after her freshman year. Bob Kersee, her track coach, encouraged her to return to school and helped her secure financial aid. In 1980 she followed Kersee to University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) to pursue a track career. Competing against top American runners, Griffith Joyner won the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) championship in the 200 meters in 1982 and the 400 meters in 1983. Upset after winning only a silver medal in the 200 meters in the Los Angeles Olympics in 1984, she stopped competing and became a customer service representative for the Union Bank in Los Angeles during the day and a beautician at night. With her training schedule severely cut, she gained weight. In 1987 she sought the help of Kersee to train for the 1988 Olympic Trials. She married Al Joyner on 10 October 1987; they had one daughter. In preparation for the 1988 Olympics, following a strict training regimen, Griffith Joyner got her weight back to 130 pounds. At the 1987 World Championship Games in Rome, she won a silver medal and popularized the hooded running uniform, which was later incorporated into the 1988 U.S. Olympic Team uniform.

Second best was not good enough for Griffith Joyner. To improve her performance, she stepped up her daily regimen to include sprint workouts and 3.7-mile runs, and, four days a week, weight-training sessions and partial squats with 320-pound weights on her shoulders. She left her bank job to work part-time in employee relations for Anheuser-Busch so that she would have more time to train. Griffith Joyner prepared for the Olympics by participating in four races at the U.S. Olympic Trials at Indiana University-Purdue University–Indianapolis in July 1988. There she ran the four fastest 100 meters in women's track history. She attributed her success to the discovery that she could attain greater speed by relaxing more as well as to her track outfits, with their high-cut legs and low-cut tops, that gave her freer movement. A few weeks after the Olympic trials, Griffith Joyner fired Kersee and replaced him as trainer with her husband. She said that she needed full-time attention, and, in addition, Kersee's percentage of her earnings was too high.

In the Olympics in Seoul, South Korea, in September 1988, Griffith Joyner continued to rewrite the track and field record books; she set an Olympic record for the 100 meters, winning the gold medal; she broke the world record twice in the 200 meters, winning the gold medal in 21.34 seconds. She won her third gold medal running the third leg of the 400-meter relay and a silver medal in the 1600-meter relay. After the Olympics, there was a rumor that Griffith Joyner might be using steroids—a rumor she vehemently denied, vowing that she was opposed to the use of performance-enhancing drugs. She never failed a drug test.

After the Olympics, Joyner appeared on television talk shows and on the covers of national and international magazines; she was also a commentator for various sports events. She appeared in one film, The Chaser, and had a recurring role on the television drama Santa Barbara. Her commercial endorsements included soft drinks, several Japanese products, and the marketing of a "Flo Jo" doll. She also designed uniforms for the National Basketball Association's Indiana Pacers. On 25 February 1989 Joyner announced that she was retiring from track to spend time writing, acting, and coaching her husband. There was some speculation that she wanted to avoid the mandatory spot drug testing that would start in 1989.

In 1988 Griffith Joyner was named French Sports-woman of the Year, Athlete of the Year by TASS, the Soviet press agency, and recipient of both the Jesse Owens Award and the Sullivan Award as the top American amateur athlete. In 1989 she received the U.S. Olympic Committee Award, the Golden Camera Award in Berlin, and the Harvard Foundation Award. She became spokeswoman for the American Cancer Society, the Multiple Sclerosis Foundation, and Project Eco-School.

In 1993 Griffith Joyner became the first woman to co-chair the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports. She also served as an honorary board member of the National Osteoporosis Foundation. In 1994 she and her husband coestablished the Griffith Joyner Foundation for disadvantaged youth. Griffith Joyner was inducted into the USA Track and Field Hall of Fame in 1995. At age thirty-eight, she died of an epileptic seizure. She is buried at El Toro Memorial Park in Lake Forest, California.

Still the world record holder of the 100- and 200-meter dashes, the glamorous and athletic Joyner was a role model for young women in sports. Although her dazzling speed, captivating style, and multiple talents elevated her to the top in the world of sports, she never forgot where she came from and devoted significant time and resources toward helping children make the most of their abilities. USA Track and Field media information officer Pete Cava said, "It is not so much the incredible performances, but Griffith Joyner the person—the person who cared about young people, the person who was involved so much in her community [that is her legacy]." Griffith Joyner said that her "mother taught us all that nothing is going to be handed to you—you have to make things happen," and Griffith Joyner, the groundbreaker who set standards of speed and demonstrated her flair as a fashion maverick, did just that.

Joyner made several videocassettes on health-related issues. She coauthored Running for Dummies, a guide to the basics and benefits of running, which includes sixteen full-color photographs of Griffith Joyner. There are several full-length juvenile biographies. They include Rob Kirkpatrick, Florence Griffith Joyner: Olympic Runner (2001); Alan Venable, Flo Jo: The Story of Florence Griffith Joyner (1999); Mark Stewart, Florence Griffith Joyner (1996), April Koral, Florence Griffith Joyner: Track and Field Star (1992); and Nathan Aaseng, Florence Griffith Joyner: Dazzling Olympian (1989). Biographical sources for the reader/researcher include the entry in Martha Plowden, Olympic Black Women (1996); Nagueyalti Warren, in Notable Black American Women, Book II (1996), edited by Jessie Carney Smith; Rob Nagel, "The Joyners," in Epic Lives—One Hundred Black Women Who Made a Difference (1993), edited by Jessie Carney Smith; Current Biography Yearbook (1989); and Joe LaPointe, "Florence Griffith Joyner," in Newsmakers (1989). Obituaries are in the New York Times and Los Angeles Times (both 22 Sept. 1998).

Joyce K. Thornton