How Ball State's Charity Griffith became a NCAA champion, Jenelle Rogers an All-American

MUNCIE. Ind. — The whirlwind weekend still hasn't sunk in for Ball State's newest national stars.

They became First Team All-Americans after Saturday's NCAA Track & Field Championships at Mike A. Myers Stadium in Austin, Texas. No pair of Cardinals had ever previously achieved such acclaim in the same year.

Yet for national high jump champion Charity Griffith and fifth-place heptathlon finisher Jenelle Rogers, the achievements resulted from more than just physical execution. In their own ways, they each overcame mental hurdles before conquering physical ones, and only recently did that mind-body partnership click for the historic duo.

Griffith found her peace through faith. For Rogers, it came from focus and maturation.

On the biggest stage, their work paid off.

"All week they were pretty relaxed. They were acting like some veterans that have been there before. Didn't seem shook," head coach Adrian Wheatley said. "Being at the national meet for the first time is, at times, extremely overwhelming. You've got Big Ten schools there, you've got SEC schools there, you've got ACC. Some big, big competition. They didn't flinch."

Griffith: 'My legs were shaking'

Griffith doesn't believe in limits.

Growing up with five older brothers and a father in the military, she was constantly pushed. She'd only win competitions if her siblings purposely lost, and those battles forged a competitive confidence within her, so much so that she felt different from her peers.

"I always grew up in elementary school ... being competitive against the guys. I was an outcast all through school," Griffith said. "If I wasn't that competitive, I would be lowering my standards to just fit in, and that's not me.

"I set my goals higher than the people around me."

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The Rushville native said she first recognized her athletic potential in high school during a weekend training session with her brothers, who also competed collegiately in track and field. A single workout increased her then-max high jump by four inches, a near-instant improvement she didn't think was possible.

So despite being what she deemed a "mediocre athlete," Griffith now wondered what she could become with proper training and dedication. She decided to forgo setting "realistic" goals and do everything she could to maximize her abilities.

"I was an underdog ... but I had this confidence that I was going to be a national champion," Griffith said. "Just carrying that confidence, not letting anybody tell me that I couldn't achieve those goals because 'It sounds very unrealistic.'

"My number one pet peeve is 'realistic goals.' I don't like that word at all. They always said these SMART goals. They get to a letter R and they say, 'Realistic goals.' I'm like, 'No, that's not a thing to me.' You're setting limits on yourself if you put 'realistic' in front of it … I'm just gonna set the bar high, and then you're gonna get failure. You're gonna get tons of failure. I wrote down 2 meters in my journal before going into the meet and I became national champion. You've got to exceed, you've got to overshoot yourself sometimes if you're going to do that."

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Although that mindset carried Griffith to a legendary set of accolades — national champion, two-time All-American, Mid-American Conference Indoor Championships MVP (2022), four-time MAC event champion, to name a few — it also nearly broke her spirit this postseason.

Griffith's supreme self-assurance and past accolades created high standards for herself, and the weight of those expectations affected her in MAC Outdoor Championships in mid-May when she wasn't performing at her best.

She cited a "very emotional-draining day" during that Friday's heptathlon competition, in which she placed second behind Rogers, and felt anxiety about still having to defend her high jump title.

Griffith only cleared 5-feet-10.5-inches in the heptathlon high jump portion, more than two inches below her program-record-setting mark of 6-feet-0.75-inches from two weeks before.

She then only cleared 5 feet, 8 inches to win her second straight MAC high jump title, narrowly edging the competition only because she reached the mark on her first attempt.

It was her lowest height of the outdoor season, which left her frustrated and confused about what was going wrong.

"I was kind of just putting too much pressure on myself," Griffith said. "My legs were shaking. I was overthinking."

'Just go and jump'

After reflecting on her performance, she realized the issue wasn't from a technical mistake or injury, but rather a misguided approach.

"I write down on my tape, it says, 'For Him,' every single time, and I realized if I am this nervous and putting all this pressure on myself, I'm doing it for myself still," Griffith said. "Going into the (NCAA) prelim meet, I talked with somebody, kind of like a spiritual talk ... He (asked me), 'What do I think about when I'm doing good?' And I was like, 'Nothing. I don't think about anything.' So the next day I was like, 'OK. I'm just gonna do what I've been doing. Just go and jump.

"Coming into the national meet, that's when I really came to the realization like, 'OK, I really do need to do this for Him. I don't need to be nervous. Give all my worries to Him. There's no reason. This is just track.' I love track, but it's just track in the end. Like, why am I so worried about it? Just have fun. I enjoy doing this. Why put so much pressure on something that I enjoy doing?"

With a refreshed mind, Griffith found results. She won the national title with a 6-foot-2.75-inch leap and blew the competition and BSU record books away with a personal-best 6-foot-4-inch concluding jump, once again rising above any limitations others placed on her.

She is BSU's fifth national champion ever and the first since 1999.

Griffith said it was especially gratifying because her brothers were often injured throughout their careers and unable to reach their full potential, so she loved finally "being able to show what the Griffith family can do."

That highlight, however, is where Griffith's Ball State journey ends. She plans to soon announce her transfer to the University of Kentucky, where she'll use her final year of collegiate eligibility before preparing to compete with USA Track & Field.

While she said Ball State will always be a part of her, Griffith is happy to leave the program in such a premier place. This season, the Cardinals won their first team MAC Outdoor Track & Field title since 2001, and fifth overall.

Wheatley and his staff have produced exceptional results in just two seasons at the helm, and with Rogers rapidly developing, Griffith is eager to see what happens next.

"It's really exciting because this is only the start," Griffith said. "I loved my time here at Ball State."

How Rogers escaped a 'dark place'

Rogers is a natural athlete who fell into the sport that made her an All-American.

She initially played basketball, and a simple interest in running and jumping eventually compelled her to try track and field. Rogers focused primarily on high jump in high school and mixed in a couple of sprints, but it wasn't until coming to Muncie from Oswego, Illinois, that an expressed interest in throwing would morph into heptathlon stardom.

"I thought I'd never do hurdles, ever, and just to have some success with that — I give some credit to my sister, Jenna Rogers," Rogers said. "She's also a hurdler, and so she's just been so helpful with building my confidence, and also my training partners, too. Charity has been a big part with just getting a good understanding of all the events."

The junior always took a fun-first approach to competition in high school and usually did well. She didn't necessarily expect to be on a national stage one day, but non-podium finishes were below her standard.

But her transition to the next level didn't go as smoothly as planned. When she didn't immediately find success at BSU, Rogers' confidence was shaken. It sent her into a negative headspace that diminished her performance and turned a once-fun activity into a stressful endeavor.

Competing in new events only exacerbated those worries and made her overall experience overwhelming.

"You do so well in high school, then you get to the collegiate level and you have all these high expectations of yourself, and when that doesn't go well, you kind of get into this dark place," Rogers said. "It just took me a minute to realize that you're not the same person you were in high school and sometimes the circumstances are different. There's things you can control and things you can't, and just thinking about the things you can control and just working on those things, staying focused and just letting life happen, has just really helped me."

Rogers' confidence "blossomed" this spring thanks to the "control the controllables" approach initiated by Wheatley and his staff. Rather than Rogers trying to manage all seven events at once, focusing only on the current task can help decrease her inner tension.

Wheatley also wants Rogers and others to keep their performance in perspective. No one needs to be perfect. He wants them to trust their training, themselves and compete hard without fear.

"(It's about) not taking ourselves too serious and really being selfless instead of selfish," Wheatley said. "I think people are in three stages of life. They're either going into a storm, they're in a storm or coming out of a storm. How you manage those things really separates individuals that are successful.

"Charity and Jenelle have demonstrated those are the things that they can do to be able to manage those things, and it's been fun to really watch, sitting back and watching kind of the fruits of the labor come together and just be able to do it at a high level on the national stage where Ball State was very visible."

As a result, Rogers enjoyed major improvements. In 2022, she placed fifth in the heptathlon at the MAC championships with a score of 4,981. This year, she won with a score of 5,667, earning her MAC MVP honors before her stellar showing at nationals when she led the field after the first day before finishing fifth overall.

"We've seen it all in different parts, but putting it together at the (conference) meet was special to watch," Wheatley said of Rogers.

With Griffith's departure, Rogers is now tasked with leading the program to continued success.

She's still processing how far she's come from a year ago, but Rogers is certain she'll fondly remember sharing her triumphs with fellow Cardinals.

"It always means more when you have someone to share it with and when it's not just about you," Rogers said.

Gus Martin is a sports reporter at The Star Press. Follow him on Twitter @GusMartin_SP, and contact him at gmartin@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Muncie Star Press: Ball State high jumper Charity Griffith wins NCAA national title