After nine years at LSU, not much has changed about former Lady Tiger track star Lori “Lolo” Jones.
Despite her status as a two-time world champion and Olympic qualifier, Jones still laces up her sneakers six days a week and gets ready for her daily workout routine at the LSU track facilities.
It is this consistency and familiarity that explains why Jones chose to remain in Baton Rouge even with her burgeoning professional track career.
“Every year that I’ve been [at LSU], I’ve either run my personal best time or kept it the same, which is a unique level of consistency for a track and field athlete,” Jones said. “Most [athletes] will have a down year.”
While Jones is one of the best women’s track and field hurdlers in the world, she hasn’t followed sponsor money or track norms, deciding instead to stay around the program she competed for from 2002 to 2005 and won three national championships with.
“I have professional friends who won national championships at their schools and have been kicked off the tracks or charged a fee to use the facilities when they tried to use them after they graduated,” Jones said. “[LSU] has been nothing but welcoming and supportive to me, which is rare.”
The Des Moines, Iowa, native works out with the current Tiger team six days a week for two to four hours a day, training on the hurdles and lifting weights in preparation for the Olympic games next year in London.
Jones has won two of the last three world championships in the 60-meter hurdles and holds the world-record time in the event. But many fans best remember Jones from her stumble into the last hurdle while she led the 100-meter hurdles and her subsequent emotional anguish in the 2008 Beijing Olympics. She ultimately finished seventh.
Jones said she uses the finish as motivation for her training.
“I use any failure as motivation for me,” Jones said. “The first time I tried out for the Olympics [in 2004], I didn’t even qualify for the national finals, but I fought hard to make it four years later, and that’s the same way I’m approaching my training for [the 2012 games].”
Jones said she wouldn’t be around LSU anymore if it weren’t for head coach Dennis Shaver.
“Our relationship is a little weird because we do get contentious sometimes, but at the end of the day it’s built around respect,” Jones said.
Shaver said the contentious but close dynamic is “unique” but also just the nature of high stakes athletics.
“Any time you have someone with the competitiveness [Lolo] brings to their sport at an elite athletic level, there are going to be some intense emotional moments,” Shaver said. “But, I have a tremendous amount of respect for Lolo, and she is very much like a daughter to me and my family.”
Shaver said Jones’ presence as a part-time volunteer is an uncommon advantage for the LSU track program.
“Having such a successful and quality person, not just athlete, who really earned all of their success around the program on a daily basis is a great example for my team,” Shaver said. “They get to see her work ethic and learn from the trials she has faced.”
Jones is about a year away from the final qualifying for the 2012 London Olympics and said she can’t wait to possibly represent her country and school again.
“When I’m running out there with the ‘USA’ on my jersey, I’m running for my country, but I will also be repping LSU and this program as a proud alumnus,” Jones said.
 
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Contact Chris Abshire at [email protected]