National collegiate record holder Brigetta Barrett of Arizona adds one more NCAA high jump championship to her trophy case.
Barrett out jumped the remaining three jumpers — Courtney Anderson of University of Southern Florida, Maya Pressley of Auburn and Leontia Kallenou of Georgia — clearing 6-2.25(1.89m) on her first attempt to secure her third consecutive title.
Barrett continued to raise the bar and cleared the following height of 6-4.75(1.95m) on her third and final attempt.
With her own national collegiate record — 6-6.34 (1.99m) — on her mind, Barrett decided to attempt 6-6.75 (2m) and break the record at her final track meet as a collegiate athlete.
The Historic Hayward Field crowd encouraged Barrett by participating in a slow clap on each of Barrett’s attempts to break her own collegiate national record. Just as each of the perfectly-synched slow claps leading up to her jumps ended, a disappointing sigh would follow.
“Today I was pretty disappointed because I did want to jump higher but its like ‘Wow it’s finally over,’” Barrett said. “So I feel very fulfilled, I mean I can’t take anything back but I don’t want to take anything back.”
Coming into the meet, Barrett was nervous. It wasn’t because this NCAA championships would be her last, it was because Barrett was going to sing the national anthem on the third day of the meet.
“I’m not going to lie, I definitely was more nervous to sing,” Barrett said. “It was very cool to go out there and to sing the national anthem at my last national championship as a collegiate athlete, so I was really honored to be able to do that because I’ve been wanting to do that since I was a freshman.”
Barrett is pursuing a singing career while she continues to pursue her goal of being considered as the best women’s high jumper the world has ever seen. Barrett plans on competing at the world championship track and field meet in Moscow, Russia, in August.
“I definitely feel like I put my mark on the collegiate world of high jump and am very, very happy and grateful to God for the thing I was able to do and for the love that I’ve received over my entire career,” Barrett said. “I’m grateful for a lot of things and couldn’t have asked for anything more.”