Amy Acuff
Amy Lyn Acuff (born July 14, 1975, Port Arthur, Texas) is an athlete from the United States. An aggressive high jump competitor, Acuff competed in the 1996, 2000, 2004, and 2008 Summer Olympics as a member of USA Track and Field. Her personal best is 2.01 m, which she achieved in Zürich on August 15, 2003. Acuff graduated from Calallen High School in Corpus Christi, Texas
Amy Acuff lives in Austin, Texas, and is an alumna of UCLA where she was inducted into the UCLA Bruins Hall of Fame in 2007.
Amy Acuff is distantly related to country musician Roy Acuff (her grandfather’s second cousin). (Acuff-Ecoff Family Archives)Amy Acuff: On what attracted her to the sport.
“I had an older brother who did track and I would go along and I’d kind of be playing off to the side, or be watching. I never liked just being a spectator. I always wanted to participate. So of course I wanted to get in there and do it for myself as early as possible.”
Amy Acuff: On her high jump beginnings.
“I tried it, maybe a couple times somewhere in there, but then I really started doing it when I was 12, through schoool track ... My coach said, ‛Go do the high jump. Get some extra points.’ You know, you’re always trying to pick up those team scoring points ... after the first year I started really displaying some advanced skills in the event, after maybe a year-and-a-half. And the summer after my eighth grade year it was really apparent that I’d be a really good high jumper. So from that point on I was very dedicated to my practices and learning about high jumping.”
Amy Acuff: On not having a jumps coach in high school.“We had a track coach who was quite good but, when you have one coach for all of the events, generally (the coach’s specialty is) sprints and they’re not going to know about some of the individual technical events. I would pretty much kind of go off by myself – mainly in the summertime, in summer track, is when I would really spend a lot of time out there training and jumping and learning by trial and error. Back then (training materials) weren’t as accessible, but I sent off for a few videos and I think I had some written literature that I’d consult. Some video of Joni Huntley and Dwight Stones high jumping in the 70s in their green tights. It was classic.”
Amy Acuff: On her first jumps coach, Bob Kersee, at UCLA.
“Toward the end of my first year he started coaching me. He was living in St. Louis, Mo., so he was a volunteer coach and he would come in and out and he would be gone for a few weeks and then he would come in. Once it was around conference time and nationals he would be there pretty regularly but, again, there was a lot of time spent alone. But at least I would do all my training with the sprinters, then on days that I would jump I would go over to the pit by myself and I was the only high jumper, so I would just do my jump workout by myself.”
Amy Acuff Modeling
Acuff is also known for her career as a model. She organized the 2000 Omni Lite Millennium Calendar of Champions, featuring nude (or semi-nude) photos of Acuff and 11 other U.S. female track and field stars, with half the proceeds going to the Florence Griffith-Joyner Foundation.
Amy Acuff's cover appearances include:
Esquire, “Women of Summer: Strength & Beauty: A Portfolio of America’s 10 Sexiest Athletes”
“Men's magazines”, such as Maxim and FHM
The 2004 Olympics were noted for the large number of female Olympians who posed nude—following in the footsteps of the 2000 Matildas and the Omni calendar. Of the 2004 examples the most visible was Acuff's appearance on the cover and within Playboy's, “The Women of the Olympics” issue.[1][2]
Amy Acuff appears across the top of the title for The Complete Book of the Olympics: 2008 Edition.
