Track and Field: Manuel eager to push limits + 2012 Track & Field Reunion This Weekend

Bruce Brown, Daily Advertiser, March 14, 2012

What can you do for an encore once you’re an All-American?

If you’re UL senior triple jumper Jasmine Manuel, you aim to jump even further.

Manuel was named an NCAA All-American on Monday after placing fourth in the NCAA Indoors Championships with a school-record best leap of 43-8, which is already some 3 feet beyond her top performance as a freshman at UL.

"I’m much stronger now," Manuel said in between light workouts on Tuesday. "My technique is definitely better. I have a second phase now; I worked on it, and it came. I understand it more now."

"It has definitely been a gradual thing."

It’s also clear that she has found her rhythm, breaking the school indoor record in the event five times in the last calendar year.

She is the first female Cajun to earn track and field All-America notice since JoJo Harris in the discus in 1994.

"Last year at the beginning of the season, I knew what I needed to work on," Manuel said. "This year is easier. I have a different mindset. I know what I want to do to get better. I’m glad I had the chance to go to nationals, and that I performed well."

"Jasmine did an outstanding job," said first-year head coach Lon Badeaux, a former record-setting pole vaulter for the Cajuns. "She got off to a rocky start in the prelims, but then had a good jump and was leading for a while.

"She’s a typical senior who gets it. She was able to take the opportunity and excelled with it. She’s on the same page with her coach (Paula Ogunbanjo), and together they both understand what it takes to succeed."

Manuel has flourished under Ogunbanjo’s tutelage since her first year at UL.

"I started off being a better jumper outdoors, but I got used to it (indoors)," said Manuel, a former star at Hammond High who posted a 37-foot indoor triple jump in high school and capped her prep career with a 39-10 effort outdoors at the 2007 LHSAA State Meet at LSU’s Bernie Moore Stadium.

"My junior and senior years in high school, my coach didn’t know that much about my event, so I was on my own," Manuel said. "I did expect a lot when I came here. I first jumped 40 feet outdoors at a meet at LSU, then went 41 feet at an NCAA Regional meet.

"I’ve surprised myself. I eventually figured out what I was doing wrong. When I set the mark at regionals, I got excited. Once I made it, I expected to do better."

It’s a long way from her prep days, when Manuel didn’t know what the triple jump was until asked to try it as a freshman.

"It was two or three meets before district, and I made state," she said. "I figured maybe I can do this."

Like many high school track and field athletes, Manuel’s first introduction to weight training came when she arrived on the UL campus. Since then, she’s grown stronger and faster.

"We didn’t do much weights in high school," she said. "They broke me down, then built me back up, took away my bad habits.

"You need speed off the board. You have to have that velocity to push yourself forward. You also learn to control everything. My freshman year, I was out of control. I had to slow it down first and learn."

Coaches expect to rest Manuel for this week’s Louisiana Classics which runs Thursday through Saturday at Cajun Track and Soccer Complex, re-starting the training rhythm that helped her peak at the NCAA Indoors.

But she still has her sights set on big things.

"My goal now is definitely 45 feet," Manuel said. "If I go further, that would be awesome. If you aim high, you just may get it."

Athletic Network Footnote: Click here for the 2012 Track & Field Reunion Page.