U.S. sprinter McKenzie Long runs from grief toward Olympic dream

PARIS — McKenzie Long’s mom is everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

In the stands of every track stadium, she is next to her daughter before races as Long listens to “Softest Place on Earth” by Xscape, her mom’s favorite song.

At the starting line, when Long folds her 5-foot-6 frame into the blocks, she swears she can feel her mom’s spirit, from the tips of her peach nails to the toes of her pink Adidas spikes.

And at the finish line, she is waiting to celebrate Long, a 24-year-old sprinting star from Ole Miss who will compete in her first Olympics in Paris this summer.

“I talk to her every day, every race,” Long told USA TODAY Sports. In June at the NCAA Championships, where Long won three titles, an Instagram post of her sitting solo in the stands went viral. It looked like the 24-year-old was merely taking a quiet moment to herself. Few knew the whole backstory.

“I’m talking to God, too: ‘God, hug my mom really, really tight as she watches me run across this track,’" Long said. "I (tell) my mom, ‘I want to feel you. Ease my mind. Let me go out there as confident as I can be. Allow me to be who McKenzie Long is.’”

There’s power, Long said, in knowing her mom “is up there protecting me and watching me, and sees everything unfold before I can see it.”

Long’s world shattered on Jan. 29, when she received a call that her mom, Tara Jones, died of a heart attack in her sleep at her home outside Honolulu. She was 45.

That Long will run in the prelims of the women’s 200-meter dash on Aug. 4 is astounding not because her talent is a surprise, but because no one would have blamed her if she’d decided competing was too hard as she navigated grief. Her coach, Holland Sherrer, would have understood if she’d walked away. But he also knew she had a rare gift.

“When these situations happen, I believe you have one of two choices — you’re either going to use it to help you, or it’s going to be the end of you,” Sherrer said. “I told her, ‘McKenzie, the normal person can go grab a tub of ice cream, sit on the couch, take a month, a week. They can quit their job. They can find something else to do. But you’re special. God has laid his hands on you and blessed you with a talent that not many people on this planet have.’”

So Long kept running. Because what happens when she stops?

Track is grief’s best distraction

With the second-fastest 200 meters in the world this year, Long is expected to make the 200 final in Paris’ Stade de France, in a race built not only on speed but also on grit and heart, characteristics Long has displayed all season.

She is here after finishing third at the USATF trials, and is a strong contender to medal.

But her journey to cross the finish line and qualify for Team USA June 29 at Hayward Field in Eugene — five months to the day she lost her mom — took a lot longer than 21.91 seconds. It started Feb. 9, at a meet in Arkansas.

Hours after she got the news about her mother, Long and Sherrer sat on the steps outside her apartment and talked. She had a meet in just 11 days. Sherrer told her that whenever she ran next, it would be the first race without her mom. It would hurt no matter the date.

Long knew another truth, too, and she’s only half-joking about this one: “She would haunt me if I stopped.”

“That was the meet where I decided, 'OK, I’m going to continue doing this for my mom.'”

Long’s love of running started in elementary school in Ironton, Ohio, two hours south of Columbus. She’d leave boys in the dust at recess, crush everyone in tag with her foot speed. Playing at home with her two older brothers and younger sister, she’d bounce off couches and do handstands in the living room, forcing Jones to sign her up for gymnastics. (Long claims this is why she’s got such good turnover speed on the track now.)

She blossomed in high school, winning Ohio’s indoor 60-meter dash state championship and finishing runner up in the outdoor 100 and 200. She started her college career at N.C. State before transferring to Ole Miss and re-writing the Rebels’ record book.

Along the way, Long and Jones started talking about the Olympics. Jones saw big things on the horizon for her baby girl, even if she was often too nervous to watch her run live. She did once in high school and could not handle it again. From then on, she’d leave the stadium – not just walk around the concourse or visit the concession stand but go all the way to the parking lot and wait to hear from her daughter.

Jones was always Long’s first post-race phone call, the one in charge of giving her a pep talk, soothing her nerves and challenging her to continue improving. Jones was a straight shooter and because of her age – she had Long when she was only 20 – they sometimes had more of a friendship than a conventional mother-daughter relationship. It was Jones who made Long’s workout playlist titled “Don’t Be A Lazy B****,” a fact that both embarrasses and delights Long.

“Oh my goodness, my mom, she was going to be my momager,” Long said. “She wanted to be involved, included.”

That’s why this summer has been equal parts rewarding and heartbreaking. Long is the first to say her mother’s death has fueled her the past five months.

“If it wasn't for her being gone, I would definitely not be as successful,” Long said. “I am motivated, I am competitive, but this was a whole other level of finding my inner self. This was a completely different shift that I never thought that I was even capable of doing.”

At the same time, not being able to hug her mom, not being able to bring her to Paris, breaks her heart all over again. Track has been both the best and worst diversion.

She’s not nervous for the Olympics, though she’s a newbie to the world stage. But she is nervous for the season — and her distraction — to end.

‘It doesn’t get better’

The irony of grief is that while known for its crippling isolation, overwhelming those going through it with gutting loneliness, it is one of the most universal human experiences. And in the past five months, Long has waded deep into it.

Some days she wakes up and feels, for lack of a better word, normal. She’ll go to practice, laugh with teammates, smile at the photo of her mom on her phone’s background. To the uneducated eye, she’s just like any other carefree 20-something chasing her dreams.

Other days it “feels like a pit,” Long said, anchoring her to her bed. She wakes up and doesn’t want to talk to anyone or do anything, except look through pictures of her mom.

Sherrer has been at her side through it all, conscious to adjust daily to her needs. The son of a pastor, he called his father as soon as he heard the news. His dad’s message was simple: You need to be there for McKenzie. What that looks like can change constantly — one day she’ll need to be hugged, the next day she’ll need to be pushed. Some days she comes to the track ready to attack her workout with teammates. Other days she needs to be able to practice by herself, to be alone with her emotions.

She’s got a lot of those, too. She’s furious at her mother for leaving her; heartsick that she was taken from her; terrified of what might become of her family in the wake of Jones’ absence. What about the grand babies she’ll never get to meet? The races where she won’t get to hype up Long?

It’s an exhausting cycle. And she’s sick of being told it’ll get better.

“That’s the worst thing you could possibly say to somebody who’s grieving,” Long said. “I would say you can navigate it better. You can handle it better. But it doesn’t get better. There’s always that pit of grief in the background of everything you do.”

She has become a vocal, passionate advocate for therapy, a practice the Black community hasn’t always embraced. About two weeks after Jones died, Long had a realization: “I didn’t want to throw my life away.”

Long never considered self-harm, but knew wallowing forever — “I just didn’t care about anything that was going on” — wasn’t the answer.

“I felt myself getting to that point and I was like, this isn’t me, I want help,” she said.

She also wants people to know it’s OK to ask for that help. Therapy is “a blessing,” and has helped her understand that grief, and the rollercoaster that comes with it, is normal.

Her therapist was the one who told her she didn’t have to push Jones out of the picture just because she wasn’t here physically. She could, and should, include her mom in everything — and no one should feel forced to bury or hide their grief. Long knows it “is going to be there no matter what.” Sharing grief shrinks its power. That way you don’t drown.

And yet, Long admitted she protects herself from grief, too. She did not go to her mother’s memorial service because “I knew I would be broken.” She’s not sure she can ever visit Hawaii again. Her push to extend her season came both from a desire to achieve dreams and a fear of what happens when it’s over.

“I know for a fact once the season is done and I'm able to breathe, I will probably be in another sunken mood for several days,” she said.

Her younger sister Carmen, 22, is still in that sunken mood. It scares Long. Weeks ago, she called Long at 4 a.m., crying.

“She was just panicking. She was like, 'I don’t want to feel this anymore,'” said Long, fear and desperation in her own voice. “It made me cry. I couldn’t be there. That’s my baby sister, and she is over there in Hawaii by herself. I’m very, very worried about her.”

She’s tried to encourage Carmen to talk to her mom, too, to include her in every activity. Doing that, Long said, is the only reason she’s in Paris now.

Her voice in a dream

The morning of the U.S. trials, Long sat in her Eugene hotel room and sobbed.

“It was a surreal moment,” she recalled. “I’d never made a final in anything big, anything major like the Olympic trials. It was crazy. I sat on the floor and just cried. I cried to her. I was just like, ‘I wish you could see me.’ It was a good cry though. It was needed.”

At the Olympics, Long doesn’t just want her mom there — she wants to leave a piece of her behind in Paris. Maybe she’ll hide Jones’ hairbrush somewhere, or carve her name into a city pillar. Something small and silly, to match Jones’ personality. She wants everyone to know: McKenzie Long and Tara Jones were both here. They accomplished their dream together.

Long sees “angel numbers” — repetitive digits — everywhere. At the SEC Outdoor Championships, where she won the 100 and finished second in the 200, she stayed in hotel room 444. It was her mom, nudging her.

She dreams about her, too.

“When I do, it’s really, really vivid,” Long said. “The most recent dream I had was right before trials, and she was talking to me, but her physical body was dead. She was dead, but her mouth was open and she was talking. You would think that’s not possible, how is this even happening? But it didn’t scare me. I woke up and was confused. What does this mean? What are you trying to tell me?”

She told her therapist about the dream.

“She was talking to me, but she wasn’t physically alive,” Long said.

Say it again, her therapist said.

“She was talking to me, but she wasn’t alive.”

Say it again.

“She was talking to me, but she wasn’t alive.”

Say it again.

“She was talking to me, but she wasn’t alive.”

Long smiled. She gets it, and she’s listening.

Email Lindsay Schnell at lschnell@usatoday.com and follow her on social media @Lindsay_Schnell

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: U.S. sprinter McKenzie Long runs from grief toward Olympic dream