Circuit City jumps in to help Lister keep Olympic dream

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Circuit City jumps in to help Lister keep Olympic dream

Nate Allen sports@nwarktimes.com

Posted on Monday, July 26, 2004

Circuit City’s slogan, "We’re with you," isn’t
just a slogan to Melvin Lister. It’s the truth. "We’re with you," Lister said, "they were with me." When Nike withdrew sponsoring the ailing former University of Arkansas fivetime NCAA champion long jumper/triple jumper and 2000 U.S. Olympian, the Circuit City store in Fayetteville became Lister’s way to make ends meet and thus still make meets. Maybe now Circuit City should claim an Olympic sponsorship of sorts. Because the job Melvin Lister still has there installing car stereos is still his income before he heads to Greece representing the United States in the Olympic Games as the U.S. Olympic Trials triple jump champion. "Hopefully now I can get something," Lister said of an athletic company sponsor. "But I don’t see a reason to quit Circuit City. I enjoy working there. They’ve been helping me this long and are willing to work with me as far as track practice and getting off at certain times to go to track meets. I’d go to people (seeking employment) but there was always a problem with how the schedule would work with track. Circuit City didn’t have a problem even before they knew who I was as far as an athlete. I really appreciated that."
He appreciates much since falling from a lofty pedestal only to rise again with a stunning 58-4 triple jump (hop, step and jump) at the 2004 Trials final, July 17 in Sacramento, Calif. The 58-4 not only is a personal best by far, and leads the world for 2004, but broke the U.S. Trials record set by Mike Conley. Conley, arguably the greatest UA athlete ever, is the former Razorback 9-time NCAA champion and retired Olympic gold and silver medalist.
As a Razorback senior in 2000, Lister had won the NCAA Outdoor triple jump and had soared 27-10 in the long jump and then made the Olympic team, though he suffered a partially torn groin ligament at the Games in Sydney, Australia. "It was a nagging injury for two and a half years," Lister said, "and I wasn’t able to jump far. Basically I fell off the map."
In 2003 he even turned to sprinting because he had run some fast 100s on Arkansas’ 4 x 100 in 2000. "I was figuring I maybe wasn’t meant to be a jumper anymore so I would try sprinting," Lister said. "but it just didn’t happen for me. This year for the Olympic Trials I felt I had to go with what has been the bread and butter for me and that’s the jumps and I went back to it and Coach Booth."
The two years Razorback field events coach Dick Booth coached the JC transfer at Arkansas were ultrasuccessful but sometimes stormy. "We didn’t always agree on everything when I was in school here," Lister said. "Coaches are supposed to be motivators, and Coach Booth did whatever he had to do to motivate me. Sometimes it made me mad..."
Booth recalls times Lister could be a petulant handful. "Melvin has grown up since then," Booth said well before the Olympic Trials. "Now he comes up thanking you just for working him out."
Lister smiled as Booth’s comment was relayed. "Maybe that’s why I got hurt," Lister said - "that I needed to be a little more humble. I think back on a lot of things..."
There’s a reason for everything, he reasons, including spending 2003 under Razorback sprint coach Lance Brauman. "Working with Coach Brauman last year has a lot to do with my jumping this year," Lister said.
However, Lister believes a higher power ultimately soared him from fourth (the top three make the team) to first on his final jump. Until hitting 56-0 1-2, 56-5 and 56-10 3/4 triple jumps in Sacramento, Lister had never surpassed his collegiate best 55-10. Even Booth wouldn’t have predicted 58-4. "That was a gift from God," Lister said. "I was in a bad position, about to fall on the ground. God guided my legs or something and made me come out of it. I honestly thought I was going to fall. My body should have been straight out and my arms out in front of me. When my legs dropped, my right leg went too far back and my left arm went up trying to keep my balance. I don’t know how I came out of my step phase. I really don’t."
For Lister, this Olympic Trials triple jump preparation was an afterthought to the long jump. He triple jumped at but one outdoor meet, Mount Sac qualifying for the Trials at 53-11 3/4. "I hadn’t put much into it at all," Lister said of the triple jump. "I just knew I was going to make the team in the long jump, but it didn’t happen. I was real upset, real mad. But the triple jump made up for it. I was jumping for joy. It added icing to the cake that it was the No. 1 jump of the year and broke Mike Conley’s Olympic Trials record. Not a bad guy’s record to break."