NASHVILLE, Tenn. — It’s hardly a surprise that Janie Ford won an SEC track and field title in a “multi” event, the tests of physical endurance and technical skill otherwise known as the indoor pentathlon and outdoor heptathlon. A two-time state high school track and field athlete of the year from Mobile, Alabama, she won more than 20 prep state titles. A New Balance Nationals champion, she won that signature national event while recording the fourth-best score ever by an American high schooler in pentathlon. She has credentials.
But even she was a little surprised she won a title on her first try. The first-ever freshman to win the pentathlon at the SEC Indoor Track and Field Championships, Ford also became Vanderbilt’s first indoor conference champion this century. She will now compete in this week’s NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships in Fayetteville, Arkansas, alongside teammates Marta Sivina (pentathlon) and Falon Spearman (60-meter hurdles).
She knew competing in the SEC, a conference whose alumni could vie for top spot in the Olympic medal count on their own, meant doing collegiate track and field on the expert setting. She anticipated some bumps beyond those brought on by a misplaced step in the hurdles. Yet as she arrived in College Station, Texas, for her first conference championship, she felt prepared to give it her best shot. And her best shot turned out to be historic.
“I had a lot of trust in myself for my performances going into SECs, which I think was really helpful,” Ford said. “For me, mentally, the hardest part is just being confident in my abilities. I’ve always been an athlete who can perform under pressure when a meet starts, but I have to be strong mentally and trust myself to produce those marks and times.”
She is a one-woman marvel in the pentathlon’s five disciplines, shifting seamlessly over the course of a few hours between the 60-meter hurdles, high jump, shot put, long jump and 800 meters (heptathlon adds javelin and the 200 meters, shifts the hurdles to 100 meters and breaks out the competition over two days). It’s not for nothing that the winners of the men’s decathlon and women’s heptathlon in the Olympics and World Championships have for decades laid claim to the title of “world’s greatest athlete.” They have to do it all.
Which isn’t the same as saying they have to do it alone. Understanding how Ford made history across five events in College Station is most easily done by starting with five people who helped her find her passion, hone her skills and trust her own potential and process.
Ford’s long jump of 6.31 meters would have set the Vanderbilt indoor record, if she hadn’t already broken it earlier in the season (Courtney Sacco/Vanderbilt University).
The Mother Who Inspires Her
Multis run in Ford’s family. Although track and field and cross country go back generations in her family, her mom introduced her to multis. A high school coach at Mobile’s St. Paul’s Episcopal School, Camille Root Ford was also a decorated youth track and field standout in her own right. She, too, was twice named the state’s track and field athlete of the year in high school and later competed collegiately for a time at the University of Virginia.
As the scion of track and field greatness, Ford was a natural when it came to running as fast or jumping as far as she could—she already shattered Vanderbilt’s indoor long jump record. But her mom encouraged her to try everything the sport offered, even when, in the case of a middle school shot put clinic, the daughter wasn’t thrilled about giving up an afternoon to awkwardly lob a metal ball with none of the natural ease of other events.
Having expert coaching on hand 24/7 certainly didn’t hurt Ford’s ascent. But it’s perhaps no less significant that her mom, whom she describes as the nicest and most caring person she’s ever known—an assessment you might not get from every teenager—made sure her daughter didn’t burn out on track.
“She loves to see me compete—she loves to cheer and yell and be intense,” Ford said. “But she’s like that with every single other athlete, too. I think she’s a competitor in her own way, a more humorous way. And it’s more that she just likes to see my growth in the sport rather than pit me against people. Her big thing that she always says is ‘I love you no matter how you do. If you win or lose, I’ll love you the same tomorrow.’”
The Coach Who Created a Championship Environment
Ford is Vanderbilt’s first indoor conference champion since Ryan Tolbert in 1997 (the same year she won an outdoor national title). But she isn’t the first Dore to stand atop an SEC podium in recent years. Since Althea Thomas arrived as director of cross country and track and field in 2021, Vanderbilt student-athletes have won three outdoor conference titles, in addition to an NCAA championship and silver medal. National honors aside, add Ford’s indoor title and that’s as many SEC titles in five years as in the previous 23 years.
Whether beginning a college career or arriving as transfers and graduate students, Thomas has convinced a lot of uniquely talented individuals with their pick of elite programs that Vanderbilt is the best place to pursue long-term academic and career interests without sacrificing athletic ambitions to compete on the biggest collegiate and global stages. That balancing act, in turn, is only possible with a positive team culture, an environment where you know your teammates have your back. Ford has long-term aspirations to work in healthcare—not surprisingly, she can’t imagine a job where she isn’t on her feet and doing a dozen things at once. But that’s the long-term appeal of Vanderbilt. In the here and now, she chose the school and Thomas’ program because it was where she felt comfortable.
“I was really looking at what program—and university—is going to treat me as more than just a student or just an athlete, but see me as a person who has individual needs and would really structure an environment where I could thrive,” Ford said. “I couldn’t be more thankful because Vanderbilt is just such a strong community. My coaches and teammates really got to know me as person in such a short amount of time. I’ve never been treated like another number. It’s never been performance first but always me as an individual.”
It hasn’t hurt that Thomas has proved as adept at recruiting and empowering staff as she is with identifying talented student-athletes.
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The Multis Guru With a Plan
No one did more than Justin Byron, associate head coach, recruiting coordinator and general multis guru, to show Ford during the recruiting process that Vanderbilt had a plan for her. He let the student-athletes make the case for the culture on Ford’s campus visits, their chemistry more persuasive than anything coaches could say. He supplied the data.
“He really focuses on transparency,” Ford said. “He sat me down and showed me my high school stats and what he thinks I could do in college and exactly a route of how we would get from A to B.”
The associate head coach who helped former Vanderbilt All-American Beatrice Juskeviciute win an SEC heptathlon title and finish second in the NCAA Outdoor Championships has proved good to his word. Even if the plan sometimes made those middle school shot put clinics look like a barrel of laughs by comparison.
In College Station, Ford cleared 1.74 meters in the high jump. It wasn’t enough to win that discipline, but it was a personal best, third-best in the field and good for 903 points in pentathlon’s scoring system (nearly 50 more points than she would have earned for going out at the preceding height). She couldn’t recall ever clearing 1.74 meters, even in practice, but she soared over the bar on her first attempt when it mattered most.
Similarly, she opened the pentathlon by winning the hurdles in a personal-best 8.30 seconds. That earned 1,061 points, around 100 more points than an 8.80 time merited in College Station. That’s significant because 8.80 also happens to be about the time she was running when she arrived at Vanderbilt. She and hurdles “have their battles,” as she puts it of an event that requires explosive athleticism, pinpoint timing and a clear mind. And with such fine lines, it can be difficult to feel the improvement on a day-to-day basis. But it’s easier to see when your name is atop the scoring sheet in the SEC Championships.
It’s the product not only of Byron’s plan for her growth but her growing trust in him. Thomas and Byron didn’t throw everything at her early in the indoor season. Indeed, she would have liked them to throw more at her. Often she didn’t even compete in multis but instead only one or two individual components of them—winning the open high jump in the Music City Challenge or setting a school record in the Bob Pollock Invitational. She was busy enough that she already holds school records in four events other than pentathlon, but it was a patient approach meant to help her build, block by block, to a greater whole. And slow and steady is not a phrase with which she’s familiar.
“It was certainly a little bit frustrating at the first meet,” Ford wryly recalled. “I wasn’t used to it. In high school, and even in middle school, I was the girl who did four events and was bouncing around and contributing as much as I could for my team. And the first meet here, I was just sort of sitting there, feeling lazy, feeling like I should be doing more—like I can do more. But it was very intentional.”
Beatrice Juskeviciute won the 2023 SEC championship in heptathlon and was silver medalist in the NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships (Vanderbilt Athletics).
The World-Class Mentor in the Neighborhood
Shot put has always been Ford’s nemesis in the multis, where success can be as much about the events you survive as those you dominate. A champion may or may not need to be the best at something, but she can ill afford to be the worst at anything. In College Station, Ford finished a modest 14th in shot put. But she increased her distance with each of her three throws, rising to the occasion to match a personal best on her final throw.
She ultimately won the SEC pentathlon title by 61 points, 4,373-4,312 over the second place finisher. The difference between her first and third throws in shot put was around 80 points.
Every centimeter matters. As some know better than others.
There are plenty of world-class experts walking around Vanderbilt’s campus. You might cross paths with the recipient of a MacArthur “Genius” Grant or a two-time SEC Coach of the Year in football. More serendipitously for Ford, she bumps into an Olympic heptathlon hopeful and former SEC champion on an almost daily basis.
Still living and training in Nashville, Juskeviciute is a regular presence around the track and field facilities. The Lithuanian narrowly missed qualifying for the 2024 Olympics, finished 14th in last year’s World Championships and is on track for the 2028 Olympics. She is one of the best in the world despite a smaller frame than many peers—with the corresponding challenges that poses in power events like shot put. To realize her dreams, she had to fight to be good enough in her weakest event to let her strengths shine. Which makes it all the more meaningful when she takes time out of her training to offer shot put advice.
“She has a unique perspective as another athlete, and she’ll tell me exactly the little things that I need to fix,” Ford said. “She’s an amazing athlete, and watching her do all her stuff, it’s like ‘Wow, I can’t believe I get to be around her.’ And then just talking to her, she is such a kind person and so supportive. She’ll text me to wish me good luck or say she’s so proud of me. She’s always there to hype me up. She is so sweet.”
The Teammate Who Lifts Her
Ford completed her SEC title with a flourish, winning the 800 meters, the final event, and setting a personal best in a time of 2:14.16. She didn’t just need every second of that personal best to win the race, she needed every hundredth of a second to hold off the second-place finisher at the line—Vanderbilt teammate Sivina at 2:14.17.
On a day when Ford’s feat understandably took top billing, Sivina (pictured right) also authored one of the best performances in program history. The senior finished fourth, trailing only Ford and Juskeviciute with the third-best point total in school history.
In the moment, Ford knew someone was on her shoulder, but it wasn’t until she crossed the line that she realized who it was. It would be difficult to come up with a better summation of a relationship built on challenging and supporting each other than chasing records side by side down the stretch in the SEC Championships.
“She’s more than a teammate,” Ford said. “She’s become one of my really good friends. Especially with the multi training, you spend so much time at the track that we’ve definitely developed a really good friendship. At the same time, we still have a little bit of competitive edge when we’re out there, which just makes both of us better at the end of the day.”
It’s what Vanderbilt is about. Finding people on their way to being special—and surrounding them with people who will help them be their best.
And maybe even make history.
Keep Reading: Falon Spearman reunites with twin sister at Vanderbilt
About the Anchored for Her Campaign
Through Anchored for Her, Vanderbilt’s comprehensive fundraising campaign, the university is positioning track and field and its broader women’s athletics programs as national leaders in advancing women’s sports. Anchored for Her’s initial $50 million goal will fuel investment in sustainable success for a new era of collegiate athletics through facility enhancements, endowed scholarships, coaching and staff positions, capital support and naming opportunities, team-specific Excellence Funds, the Women’s Athletics General Fund and the Competitive Excellence Fund.
