In 1999 I had the privilege to jump for Team USA at the World Championships in St. Louis, Missouri. I was lucky to be placed on a team with Shaun Hamilton, Willie Amos, and Cliff Forbes. All three of them were amazing athletes. As you may know Shaun went on to become a board member for USA Jump Rope and is now the head coach of the USAJR All-Star team. Willie was an excellent football player. He played for Nebraska and was signed last year by the Chicago Bears to play in NFL Europe.

To say I was fortunate to have such great teammates would be an understatement. They were very easy to work with and picked up the routines very fast. We all had to learn fast… we had very short notice that we would be jumping together and were only able to hold three practices together before heading to the competition. Considering we lived six hours away from each other, I’m surprised we were able to get even that much practice in. In the end we ended up winning the all-male senior division. It remains one of my proudest accomplishments, but most of the credit belongs to my extremely talented teammates.