Amy Acuff
By Daily Bruin Staff
June 8, 1997 9:00 p.m.
Monday, 6/9/97 Amy Acuff Women’s track
Amy Acuff’s four-year track and field career at UCLA will go
down as one of the greatest in the history of the sport. Regarded
as one of the best young high jumpers in the world, Acuff will
continue to compete at the world-class level when she leaves the
hallowed grounds of Westwood. Acuff, a 1996 Olympian, is one of the
most honored athletes ever to go to UCLA. Winner of five NCAA
individual titles in the high jump, Acuff is the only woman in
Pac-10 Conference history to win an individual event for four
consecutive years. She accomplished this feat when she won the
Pac-10 high jump title with a leap of 6-2 3/4 in May. Three of her
five NCAA titles came indoors in 1994, 1995 and 1997, while Acuff’s
two outdoors’ titles came in 1995 and 1996 when she cleared 6-5 and
6-4 1/4, respectively. In 1995, Acuff was rated the No. 1 high
jumper in the country and became only the second athlete in U.S.
women’s track and field history to win every major high jump title
in the same season. Not only did she win both the NCAA indoor and
outdoor titles, she won the USA title in Sacramento with a jump of
6-4 3/4. She also finished eighth at the World Championships. Her
athletic honors don’t stop there. She also holds the collegiate
high jump record of 6-6, a mark she set as a sophomore at the
Pac-10 Championship meet in Tucson, Ariz. Last year, Acuff competed
at the U.S. Olympic trials and leaped her way onto the Olympic team
with a third-place performance of 6-3 1/2. She competed in the
Summer Games in Atlanta but did not qualify for the finals in the
high jump. Acuff not only excelled on the track but in the
classroom too. Acuff earned first-team and second-team Academic
All-American honors. In 1996, Acuff’s GPA of 3.40 in pre-biology
earned her first-team Academic All-American honors and her 3.67 GPA
in 1995 earned her second team Academic All-American honors. Acuff
may have ended her college high jumping career in Bloomington,
Indiana but she is far from finishing her jumping career. She will
compete in the U.S. Nationals, hoping to qualify for the World
Track and Field Championships this August in Athens, Greece. Then
in the year 2000, Acuff will have her sights set on Sydney,
Australia, where she will try to compete in her second Summer
Olympic Games. By Donald Morrison, Daily Bruin Contributor. Amy
Acuff
