Bills wide receiver Marquise Goodwin might have fallen short in his bid to make the Olympic team, but there will be an NFL tie on the United States track and field team.
Via Jere Longman of the New York Times, 18-year-old Vashti Cunningham, the daughter of former NFL quarterback Randall Cunningham qualified for her trip to Rio by finishing second in the high jump at this weekend’s trials.
And she’s not just going as a hanger-on or another member of a team, but with a legitimate chance at a gold medal. She is the reigning indoor world champion, and tied for the highest jump in the world this year, at 6 feet, 6 ¼ inches.
Her father now works as a minister and as her coach in addition to coaching high school football, and admitted he drew some inspiration from his former boss with the Eagles, Buddy Ryan.
“I’ve got a little Buddy in me,” Randall Cunningham said. “The determination, the focus, don’t take any prisoners.”
The elder Cunningham was also a high jumper before a knee injury ended that dream and sent him into a 16-year-career in the NFL. And while he coaches his daughter with the intensity of one of football’s great barkers of all time, his daughter is also still an 18-year-old, immune to it at times.
“I think I’m so laid-back and chill because I have not been here before,” Vashti Cunningham said. “I don’t know what it’s like for the nerves to hit me.”
Of course, she still wants very much to win, and has a legitimate chance to do so in the Olympics.
