ROCHESTER, N.Y. — For Webster Schroeder senior Corintia Griffith, track is life.
“Honestly, track is a big part of my life and it seems like it is really my life right now,” Griffith said, “I like to walk around barefoot because I like the feeling of the track on my feet, especially if it’s been like a long day at school and I’ve just had shoes on all day. I think it’s a nice like moment to de-stress and calm down,”
It’s all about the zen that sent her triple jumping career skyrocketing.
“If you told me I’d be standing here in my shoes like a couple of years ago, like when I first started, I’d be like, 'Absolutely no way. You’re joking,'” she laughed.
Her amount of school records is in the double digits. She has a New York state outdoor record, and she recently scored eighth in the country.
“Well that was something I honestly never really thought I’d get to," Griffith said. "I know, when I was younger, I used to look at the leaderboards for high school and see where people are and where they’re ranked. And I always thought I'd be the girl who was going to be sprinting and doing good. And so now that I’m a jumper, and I’m doing better than I am sprinting. This is crazy."
However, her skillset hasn’t always been about her love for the sport. She started as a long jumper and a sprinter.
“My first meet happened to go extremely good for me when I was triple jumping and I still hated it," Griffith said. "Like, my first year reprogramming. I hated it. I didn’t want any part of it. I didn’t like it primarily because when I joined the team, I joined the varsity team in seventh grade. All of the kids around me would tell me, especially the triple jumpers who were my friends, they’d be like, 'Don’t do this when you get older because it’s going to hurt your legs.' You have like animosity towards it because of like everything you hear, but, you know, I ended up being good at it. So I stuck with it and now I’m here. So I’m happy I did."
She trains every day and has made quite the name for herself. This season, she was recognized by a competitor at a meet in Virginia.
“I was at a meet and I had people come up to me be like, 'Oh my god, I know you. I saw you here last year. You're jumping really good.' And I was like 'Awe, thanks.' So you do get people occasionally,” Griffith said.
Track is typically an individual sport, however Griffith says it’s all about the people.
“It is really important to me," she said. "I feel like if you don’t have a solid team bond, especially in a sport like this, you’re not really going to get very far because people supporting me on the sidelines really does mean everything, even in the long run."
Throughout her final high school season, she’s become a mentor.
“I like to translate everything that I’ve learned throughout the years, especially from different people, different competitions, different coaches to other athletes here, especially when people ask me advice. I like to especially help out with the triple jumpers we have on the team and give them advice on their marks or their form or whatever,” Griffith explained, as she, too, is a visual learner.
Since she’s been on the varsity team from an early age, she’s experienced a lot of interactions with college coaches. She says they’ve always approached her with advice for her next jump.
“It’s very intimidating,” She explained, “When you have people coming up to you and be like, 'I’m the coach here and I want to give you advice.' It’s like, oh my gosh, that’s scary to talk to them. But it gets easier as time goes by.”
She’s preparing for her next season where she’ll be triple jumping for Harvard University’s Division I team. She will also be studying biology. She’s learned a lot from Webster Schroeder’s track team.
“I’ve learned that if I really want to work for something, I really have to focus in on it,” she smiled.