Where They Are Going — ACC

Prize Recruit: Justin Forde (Miami)

by Sieg Lindstrom

COACH AMY DEEM, who has guided Miami’s women to 7 NCAA top 10 finishes (4 indoors, 3 out), is on a mission with her men’s squad and multi-talented jumper Justin Forde (McMahon, Norwalk, Connecticut) represents a potentially game-changing enhancement to that effort. “He’s a tremendous talent; we’re really excited to see what he can do,” says Deem, who served as women’s Olympic head for London ’12. “We’re really excited in developing our men’s program and I think he as well as a couple of our other freshmen are going to really help us.”

As a triple jumper in his prep senior year, Forde burst from =No. 9 on the ’18 yearly list at 50-3¼ to No. 1 at 52-10, winning the New Balance Nationals both indoors and out and placing 2nd (top prep) at the USA Juniors. The flurry of honors earned him his state’s first-ever No. 1 in our TJ All-America ratings.

Forde, also a football and basketball player at McMahon, is a goal-oriented guy and an e-mail from Miami jumps assistant Rob Jarvis to his high school coach lit a fire. Forde had attracted some notice in his junior year, primarily for his 7-0 high jump best. Says Jarvis, “Justin’s coach, Rudy Matute, sent me an e-mail probably in the wintertime going into Justin’s senior year. He just asked what would Justin need to jump to get a look?” Jarvis sent Matute the Hurricanes’ scholarship standards and “what Justin ended up doing,” says the college mentor, “was he printed it out and hung it above the door of his bedroom, and every day when he left to go to school he just saw what those numbers were and he started chipping away at them.”

Forde bounced 51-3 at the New Balance Indoor and then 51-5 for his win at the outdoor version of the meet. “I had a big foul there so I was just excited to jump and I couldn’t wait to get [to the U20 Nationals] and compete against people better than me,” he says. That he did, powering out to the 52-10 on his second jump to finish just an inch behind NCAA finalist Treyvon Ferguson of Kansas.

“I chose Miami because of my connection with my coach here and my belief that he’ll bring me to the next level,” says Forde. “Everybody here just works hard and when I came here it seemed like everybody wanted to be great so that’s why I chose Miami.”

Jarvis says Forde’s practice numbers are already eye-opening: “The strength numbers are through the roof. He’s just a raw talent and just with us introducing things slowly he’s picked up on things really quick.” And Jarvis also sees an intangible: “One of my close mentors and friends is Rana Reider who is Christian Taylor’s coach,” he says. “So I’ve been lucky to have been to a lot of Christian’s practices and competitions and what not. It’s just seeing how quick and explosive Christian is. I mean obviously Justin’s Justin and Christian’s Christian, but Justin just does some things that you just can’t teach. And it’s been a lot of fun watching it. And, being honest, seeing how rough he is on a lot of things technically, once those things get addressed and cleaned up over time, I think he’s going to surprise a lot of people.”

Deem says Forde “doesn’t act like a freshman, in the sense, she explains, “He brings a different mentality to practice, which makes everyone in the group just kind of rise up.”

Forde says, “I just want to shock a lot of big names. I want to hit 17-plus [c56ft]. And I like to set my goals pretty big so I kind of want to make Nationals as a freshman too and be an All-American.”