By Gavin Priest and Jack Footer, Cronkite PR Lab
Before teaching students at Arizona State as a history professor, Victoria Jackson was running in the competitive world of collegiate track. The journey to Tempe wasn't originally in her plans, but through several connections, it led her to become a championship student-athlete and a groundbreaking academic leader.
But Jackson didn't start her collegiate career at Arizona State. She competed in cross country and track and field while completing her undergraduate degree at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Jackson expected to finish college with a degree in math and science, but she fell in love with history because of a professor with an animated personality.
“He was a brilliant storyteller, and he would get so excited when he was trying to convey the big takeaway or point of the lecture,” Jackson said. “He would literally start jumping up and down, and I was just taken away. I thought it was so cool, and I was like, ‘I want to do what that guy does.’”
During her time at UNC, in addition to being on the cross country and track teams, she worked with multiple professors who noticed her fondness for history and connected her with ASU history professor Peter Iverson.
After a phone call with Iverson, Jackson was enamored with his work in Native American studies, including the Navajo. The topic closely matched what she had been studying and working on at UNC, so ASU fit what she was seeking in a PhD program.
An academic and athletic star
While completing her PhD, Jackson never expected to continue in collegiate athletics. But her reputation preceded her. She had helped the Tar Heels win the indoor and outdoor ACC Track and Field Team Championships in 2001.
Once the ASU athletic department discovered she was transferring to Tempe, they immediately recruited her for the Sun Devil Cross Country and Track and Field teams.
The rest is history.
Jackson’s first year on the Sun Devil Cross Country team was also Head Coach Luis Quintana's first year, and their approaches to the team were very similar. This made Jackson's transition from UNC to ASU seamless.
“We're happy runners and just bring positivity to hard work, and that was the kind of culture Louie established as the new leader of the program,” Jackson said. “We were very good. We were vying for, or winning, conference championships.”
During her tenure at ASU, Jackson helped both programs achieve athletic feats never seen before.
“We won the school's first conference title in outdoor track and field for the women's program, and we trophied in all three seasons at NCAA Nationals," Jackson said. "Many of my teammates went on to become Olympians, and it was the culture here that was just so special at that time.”
Since ASU had a large graduate student community at the time, especially in the history department, Jackson loved having two very different yet large support systems — one athletic and one academic. This allowed her to excel in two different facets of her life at once.
Off the track, she loved working closely with students as a graduate assistant. It gave her a strong sense of pride, not just in helping them, but also in mentoring them. It solidified her decision to pursue a faculty position after graduation.
The best memories
Her favorite memory at ASU was competing in the then-Pac-10 championships in Eugene, Oregon. Although Jackson found it remarkable to compete in the recently renovated stadium, she felt the race mattered more because it took place in a stadium with such rich history.
“The old Hayward Field had such incredible energy, and the old wooden infrastructure of that stadium retained all the history that had happened there. The residents of Eugene and the surrounding area understood that, and they would turn out for home meets,” Jackson said.
Jackson also loved representing the Sun Devils because people from across ASU’s athletic department and the university showed up to support them. One spectator in Eugene was longtime ASU administrator and former football coach Don Bocchi.
A Sun Devil for Life
After her time at ASU, Jackson signed an endorsement deal with Nike and competed in US Championships and Grand Prix events. Her favorite professional race was in Helsinki, Finland, in a sold-out stadium where the sun was still shining at 10:30 p.m. in the summer.
Since retiring from running competitively, Jackson has gone on to become a faculty member at Arizona State, leading sports and humanities, specifically being the co-director of the Great Games Lab, which “explores the global convergence of sport, media, and geopolitics, as well as America’s ever closer sporting relationship with the rest of the world.”
She said that without ASU, she wouldn’t be where she is today.
“There's a value this institution places on making things accessible and serving the public in a way that you just don't see to the same degree at other institutions,” Jackson said.