[Grace 01] • A Kind of Grace

The best sports stories are about overcoming overwhelming odds, confronting adversity, and--with a magical combination of skill, will, impossibly hard work, and determination--beating back the obstacles and triumphing with grace. It's no surprise, then, that Jackie Joyner-Kersee, multi-Olympic champion, All-American basketball star, and all-around inspiration and role model would include "Grace" in the title of her stirring autobiography; through her long careers, she has been both its beneficiary and its embodiment. Her journey from the poverty of East St. Louis to international fame and accomplishment is a marvelous tale of courage and conviction, which she movingly relates with passion, humor, honesty, and, of course, grace.