Jackson's Rushin to sign with Mizzou

Jill Rushin admits she never thought it was a possibility four year ago.

How things have changed.

Rushin, a senior at Jackson High School, will sign a national letter of intent Wednesday to compete in track and field at the University of Missouri.

"I've been wanting to go there since I was a freshman and first went to their camp," she said. "It's very satisfying because I can remember thinking that Mizzou would probably never offer me a scholarship because of how big they were. I can remember thinking that. Now that I'm finally a senior and it happened, it's an amazing feeling."

Rushin won the Class 4 state title in the shot put and discus at last year's high school state meet. She added a national title in the shot put and a second-place finish in the discus at the AAU Track and Field Championships, also known as the Junior Olympics, in August. She now can add a college scholarship to her list of accomplishments.

"It's a wonderful feeling," she said. "Working four years and finally getting to where you want to be just shows you that things can pay off if you work hard."

Rushin visited two other schools -- TCU and Oklahoma -- before deciding Missouri was the place for her.

"I liked both those schools and the coaches were great," she said. "But my Mizzou visit was my third visit. That one was just perfect. I loved everything about the school. The coach is awesome. The team is awesome. The academics are great. I love the campus. There's just a great feeling up there so it just sold me and I knew I wanted to go there."

She said she's thinking about majoring in either journalism or pre-med.

Rushin dominated at last year's state meet. Her winning throw in the shot put beat the second-place finisher by more than 5 feet, 5 inches. Her championship throw in the discus was more than 3 feet better than the runner-up.

"My motivation now is to get one of the state records," she said. "I'm going to go for the state shot put record. And hopefully I'm going to repeat and win both again this year."