Everything was happening the way junior all-arounder Jessie Jordan had envisioned when she stepped to the balance beam in the Southeastern Conference Championships.
Nearly midway through the Birmingham, Ala., meet, the LSU gymnastics squad was in the running for the conference title, and one of Jordan’s typical standout beam routines could have narrowed the slim margin separating the Tigers from the lead heading into LSU’s strongest event.
As the Crimson Tide-heavy crowd erupted to the sounds of “Sweet Home Alabama” blasting through the arena, Jordan calmly ascended the beam and gracefully nailed a series of flips and split leaps without the slightest hesitation.
But the normally steady Jordan had a split-second mind lapse near the end of her routine, and it resulted in the first fall of her All-American season.
“I knew it was my last skill, but instead of just breathing like I normally do, I set a correction to myself,” Jordan said. “It was that quick mindset change that made me go off the beam.”
Jordan received a 9.325 after her fall off the beam, the second lowest score of her career, and LSU was all but eliminated from contention for the SEC crown.
But the unwavering Jordan has experienced worse trials throughout her life, and one misstep on the balance beam wasn’t going to be enough to shake her confidence.
“I would have loved to get on that beam and done the best routine of my life, but things don’t always work out,” Jordan said. “You can only move forward and do what you can to not let those things happen again.”
Moving forward is a lesson Jordan first received when she was 10 years old.
In October of 2004, her mother, Shela Jordan, was driving the family’s Ford Expedition with Jessie, her younger sister, their cousin and a friend in the car.
The casual drive turned violent when an unknown driver abruptly merged in front of Shela Jordan on the highway. She swerved to avoid a collision, but her top-heavy SUV couldn’t withstand the sudden shift.
The Expedition flipped four times before hitting the guardrail, and Jessie Jordan’s then 7-year-old sister Jacy was ejected out of her seat belt and onto the highway.
With glass piercing her own body, a bruised yet coherent Jessie Jordan climbed out of the wrecked Expedition to reach her sister, who lay in a rapidly growing pool of blood.
“As Jacy laid on the side of the highway bleeding to death, Jessie picked her up and held her until medical assistance arrived,” Shela Jordan recalled.
Jacy Jordan suffered a broken femur, lost calf muscle and needed grafts on her left leg because of the amount of skin that was scraped off when she slid across the pavement. But her condition appeared much more fatal in the immediate aftermath of the accident.
“At first, the conversation was we don’t know if she’s going to make it through the night,” Jessie Jordan said. “Then next, it was we don’t know if she’s going to keep her leg because of how much damage that was done. After that, [doctors] went in and saw there could be movement and tissue that was still alive, so they were able to save it.”
Ten years and more than 20 surgeries later, Jacy Jordan has moved forward with her life. The effects of the wreck are still evident on her left leg, but she now has full use of her leg and is currently preparing to attend the University of Texas, her mother said.
However, Jessie Jordan and her family encountered another life-altering obstacle four years after the accident.
One Friday morning, John Jordan told his wife he had a sharp pain in his back. At first, he thought he pulled a muscle. But as the weekend dragged by, a frightened Jessie Jordan realized her father’s situation was much more dire.
“Finally, it got to the point where it actually looked like he was dying,” she said.
John Jordan was taken to the hospital the following Monday. Initially, the doctors thought it might have been old age or arthritis affecting his back, Shela Jordan said. He returned home that evening, but his pain worsened.
Two days later, Jessie Jordan watched her mother bring her deathly looking father to another hospital, where doctors revealed the grave magnitude of his condition.
“Right when my mom got there, one of the doctors told her, ‘You need to get in the car and follow us right now because he needs to go in immediate surgery,’” Jessie Jordan recalled.
Doctors discovered a life-threatening staph infection in John Jordan’s spine that had spread to his shoulders and wrists. Given the severity of the infection, Shela Jordan said doctors warned her there was a chance her husband might not survive.
But John Jordan lived through the dangerous procedure. After the hospital released him, he spent six months connected to an IV drip and had to relearn to walk before he was able to return to work.
Through unexpected hardships, Jessie Jordan nearly lost two people she cherished most in her life. But through all her family endured, she learned how to push through adversity instead of fixating on circumstances out of her control.
It’s why Jessie Jordan maintained a positive outlook despite her costly fall at SECs, and it’s why she fully expects to bounce back when she steps to the balance beam in the NCAA Baton Rouge Regional on Saturday in the PMAC.
“It’s hard to see people just beat themselves up and get extremely upset about things that, of course matter, but don’t really matter,” Jessie Jordan said. “The people around you and the people you love is what really matters. I guess I’ve just taken it throughout my life as bad things can happen, but it’s not the end of the world, and we’ll keep moving.”

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Richard Redmann

LSU junior Jessie Jordon