Don’t Jump With Her… Unless You Like Losing

For those of you who don’t know Rayven Nealey, she’s a senior at Madison High and participates in a lot of things like powder puff, cheer, and track. When asked which is her favorite she responded track, “Um, probably because I’m good,” she added with a smile and a laugh.

Some of you might think it’s cocky or being too overly confident, but is it really if you can back it up?

Nealey hasn’t even started her senior season in track and she’s already a two time state champ in the triple jump and she’s only done track for three years. She usually out jumps the other girls in meets and practices by more than a staggering three feet so she said she likes to compete with the boys.

“I don’t actually compete with the boys in meets but I do sometimes in practice,” Nealey said. “During events and stuff I’ll watch the boys and try to jump further than them, It’s a little more of a challenge for me and keeps me motivated to do better than them.” I asked if she ever beats the boys and she responded, “Yeah sometimes I have. At practice me and this one boy will jump together and I’ve beat him a couple times, it’s always funny because his family will give him a tough time for losing to a girl,” she added with a grin.

Triple jump is her personal best and favorite event, but she also does the long jump, 100, and the four by one relay. Some things she doesn’t like about track is the workouts because she would rather just workout on her own, which she does every morning at four during the offseason. But she really enjoys the meets and is looking to win state for a third consecutive year.

As for the future, Nealey is hoping to run track at the collegiate level. Coming up in a couple days, she has a recruitment trip to Colorado State that she’s really excited about. “Personally, I would love to go to either Georgia, LSU, or Nevada Reno.” she said, “those three have always been my favorite schools and I have family in those areas so that would be another bonus.”

As I found out, Nealey has many goals but one of the more challenging ones is to make it to the Olympics. “It’s funny,” she said, “so many people come up to me and ask if they can be my water girl or towel boy if I make it to the Olympics. I tell everyone sure so I’ll probably have a lot more water boys than the other people,” she said as she laughed.

Just going to the Olympics would be plenty enough for most of us, but Nealey wants more, for the last couple months she’s been training really hard and wants to beat the world record for the girls triple jump. She’s currently about 11 feet from it, but I’m sure if she keeps competing and working like she has been, hardly any of us would be surprised.