Setting The Standard: From Pop-Sockets To All-America, Justin Stuckey

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - In sports, there is a strong desire to always remain in complete control. Manage the controllables. The athletes that manage them well experience success, and those that don't, never reach their full potential. Then, there is this all too popular counterculture to the control narrative called the process. If you go within 10 zip codes of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, this idea is known as the "trust the process" mantra. This is all well and good, and who doesn't love a good sports analogy, but what if every overcoming sports tale begins somewhere between control and trust? Surrender. Athletes that surrender all they have to the process of growth, strength, and perseverance not only have success, but they build others around them to success, as well. Enter Samford track and field high jumper, Justin Stuckey, who surrendered to the long process of overcoming injury and loss in order to reach an airspace that no Bulldog had ever reached before.

The first weekend in March, 2019, Justin Stuckey sat in the stands of the state-of-the-art Birmingham CrossPlex for the 2019 NCAA Indoor National Championships. A rookie on the Samford track and field team, Stuckey was just an earshot from his hometown of Helena, Ala. and watched as his friend, Shelby McEwen, topped two other SEC opponents to claim a national championship in the men's high jump for Alabama.

"I remember sitting in the bleachers at the top when my boy Shelby won, and I was like I have to be here. I want to be here. I took one of the pop sockets that they had, and I put it in my room at home and I was like, I'm going to be here."

Indoor season 2020. On the outside looking in, you would have never thought anything was wrong. Stuckey continued to build on his 2019 freshman campaign, where he was second at the SoCon Indoor Championships and third at the SoCon Outdoor Championships. At the 2020 SoCon Indoor Championships, Stuckey won his first SoCon individual title with a jump of 2.05 meters (6' 8.75"). But, on the inside Stuckey, was struggling with chronic pain that continued to plague him throughout the indoor season.

"I had some knee issues pretty much the whole season, every time I came out to the track something was hurting. There wasn't a day where I was out there where I was like my knee feels great, my knee was hurting."

We only talk about the devasting injuries, the ones that require surgery, have setbacks, take months, if not years, to heal; but what about the injuries that take an athlete, who is on the cusp of brilliance, and prevents him from making that jump from good to great. Sure, Justin Stuckey won the SoCon Indoor title as a sophomore, but standing between him and something bigger was a nagging knee injury that just wouldn't go away. He was ready to push through the outdoor season and make the best of the situation, but then…

On March 12, 2020, the NCAA would officially cancel the 2020 Outdoor Track and Field Championships due to the increasing global Coronavirus pandemic.

"Rona hit, and so after that we all got sent home, and for me, it was just like ok, I can get healthy."

While the rest of the world was reeling, and athletes all over the country were struggling with the downtime, Stuckey had a perspective unlike any other. It was a chance to get healthy without the pressure of an outdoor season, or even an offseason; it was something unheard of in the track world. It was a break from competition.

"Going back home in the quarantine gave me a new aspect on life and what's important. Know that when we get back to school, when we get back to track and the things that I had been doing we are going to take full go. And really not take anything for granted. That was the biggest thing from the season getting taken away, was not taking stuff for granted."

During the spring, when students were not allowed to be on campus due to the spread of COVID-19, Stuckey worked with track and field athletic trainer Bria Stanley-Coursey and Dr. Emily Bell Casey, the team physician, to get to the source of the pain. "They tested me out and I had some slight tears on the side of my knee connected to my hamstring. Not the most devastating injury, but it was definitely something that would have hindered me for a while."

In May, Stuckey got three shots in his knee to help alleviate the injury, but then came the hard part…the comeback.

"I was pretty much out the rest of the summer just rehabbing and training. John McBryde, one of our physical therapists here, worked me the entire summer and got me right in the best shape possible."

"Coming back, you didn't really know what to expect because you had this crazy disease you had never heard of that just literally removed you from school, removed you from all social activities, and now you are getting to come back to the school you have been at, but it's not the same."

Some classes were online, some were online and in person. You had to wear masks inside and outside. Stand six feet apart. Teams split up to practice in weight rooms. Go to church online. Don't go out to eat. Don't hang out with your teammates. Do small groups over the phone. Oh, and yes, please continue to win championships and perform at the highest level in the classroom and on the playing surfaces.

"It's a new learning experience for everybody." Beyond the COVID-19 protocols and being back in school, Stuckey was still rehabbing, with only the fall to prepare for the long 2021 season ahead.

"Well, going into the fall training, my coaches were taking me steady going back into it. So we wanted to be smart about when I started jumping." But that didn't keep the dreamer inside from setting lofty goals for the upcoming year.

"I already had big goals in mind, ready for the year. My long-time AAU coach, Coach Ty Quarles, who passed away due to Covid. I talked to him in August, and he was like 'Man how's it going?' and I was like, "It is going good, I'm getting ready for a season and I feel like I'm going to be an All-American, and he was like 'I'm sure you are going to get it.' That was already a chip on my shoulder." For an athlete as driven as Justin Stuckey, there was something extra to fight for, a reason to reach new heights for someone who had been so instrumental in his life.

So back at it, it is time for the indoor season. Back, healthy, and ready to take on the world. Right?

"The indoor season was definitely a test of my patience I would say. The first meet I did terrible in my eyes. A lot of pressure, it took me like on my third attempt to get the first bar and that was the only bar I got."

The second meet was a brutal reminder that the coronavirus was still rampant, and a new reality that student-athletes had to contend. The night before the Bulldogs were to host the Samford Invite, Stuckey received a positive test around 7 p.m. forcing him and all of his roommates to quarantine. Down two meets, Stuckey had to find a way to refocus, or risk not reaching his lofty goals. He found solace back home at his empty high school track, training the entire time he was there, getting right.

As if scripted, returning to school Stuckey hit seven feet for the first time in February. "The whole indoor season was really like a movie, When you get to conference you only have one shot to make NCAAs. Confidence goes a long way, I would say. I was really confident going into that meet and just got to Natty's."

NCAA Nationals is an athlete's dream, and Stuckey had been laying in bed watching YouTube videos of the NCAA nationals experience and all the festivities involved. Athletes spend their careers dreaming of the moments at NCAAs…the crowds, the energy, the performances that last a lifetime.

"It was not like that."

Stuckey made the trip to Fayetteville, Ark. for the 2021 NCAA Indoor Championships. "Arkansas was nice, but honestly in a way, I felt alone. I was taken away from everyone, on the team obviously, but then the other athletes. You could only be in the facility the day you competed, there was no banquet. Everybody was calling me like 'Hey bro, how do you feel?' and I was like bro, I don't feel like I have a meet."

But, Stuckey found a way to lock in and focus on the task at hand. "We had the first shake out, and that was the first time I saw all the athletes that were actually there competing, and that just got me in the mode of 'ok, let's get it.'"

And get it he did. Personal best, check. School record, check. First team All-American, check.

Coach Ty Quarles was right, Justin Stuckey was an All-American.

"It was a great experience, and I was just so humbled and just to see the reactions that I had on my phone afterwards with everybody texting me, it just felt great. I was like, man look how far I've come, look how far God's brought me. I went from a guy who just may be a conference level guy, and now I am finishing First Team All-American. That just a blessing in itself."

Goals achieved, story over. Typically yes, but not this one. Stuckey doesn't settle for one specific goal. The goal is to get a bar, then raise it higher, and he took the next up mentality with him into the outdoor season.

On his birthday weekend, April 16-17, 2021, Justin and the Samford squad headed to Auburn, Ala. for the War Eagle Invite. "I competed long jump that Friday, and so after that, went out for birthday dinner, I was feeling good. Woke up the next morning, honestly, I felt so sore. It did not feel like one of those days where I just feel the best."

But his family and friends were in the stands watching, so he went for it. Clear all the way to 2.21 meters (7' 3"), and the first jump? Bad. Stuckey regrouped and the second attempt was clean with room to spare. Seven feet. Three inches.

"It just tells me, man you're close, just keep working. I think that is my mindset all the time. Whenever you hit one level, there's another level to hit, just taking each one, picking them up as tokens, and just being grateful because it could be the other way around. You gotta be grateful for every accomplishment you have."

Stuckey set a new SoCon Outdoor record at the SoCon Championships with a jump of 2.19 meters (7' 2.25") easily securing the individual title and a spot at the NCAA East Regionals. The Regional round was one of his most difficult meets, struggling with nagging pain in his calf and Achilles tendon. Worried that the pain would keep him from qualifying for the NCAA Nationals, he made it through, clearing two bars and booking a flight to historic Hayward Field for the NCAA 2021 Outdoor National Championships.

"It takes more mental preparation than physical I would say for the long run of a season that long, it was like six months. And I was like, man, you got to be grateful for even getting to the point and not being satisfied, but understand like a year ago, you weren't at this stage at all. Now you're here and just keep building off of that."

Stucky placed 15th at the NCAA Outdoor Championships earning Second Team All-America honors, and an opportunity to compete at the 2020 Olympic Trials that had been postponed due to the Coronavirus pandemic.

"I feel like the trajectory of my track career kind of changed after this, I have two more, this year and next year, to still compete and I have this to look back on just like a starting block, having something to build off of."

Justin Stuckey is poised under pressure with a rare mixture of humility and radical confidence he credits to his upbringing. "Honestly, I'm going to say how I was raised, and just understanding whatever you do you have to put your full effort forward. You got to believe in yourself, and I believe that God has blessed everybody with talent no matter what it is, and you have to hone in on that talent…He didn't bring us this far just to go that far."

So how far? Where to now?

"I want to win a national championship at home. NCAA Indoor is in Birmingham, there are going to be fans. I want to win."

When asked what it would mean, Stuckey, who is rarely emotional, glanced to the floor as he rubbed his hands together. "It would mean everything, just looking back on the journey, and to do it, get the job done in my hometown, that would mean everything."

From a pop socket to a school-record holder, a conference champion, and two-time NCAA All-American, Justin Stuckey could have never imagined the journey he has been on since that March day in the bleachers of the Birmingham CrossPlex. And if he could tell that young dreamer anything, it would simply be, get ready.

"Get ready, because the journey that I've been on has been a crazy one. I would just tell him to get ready and enjoy the journey, for sure."

And it's not over yet.

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Players Mentioned

Justin Stuckey: Senior

Players Mentioned

Justin Stuckey
: Senior

Samford University Athletics

Players Mentioned

Justin Stuckey

Players Mentioned

Justin Stuckey