My Teacher, My Coach, My Mother

Her boney fingers curled into a protective fist. Jazzmin Jeter had just been roughed up by one of her classmates, and it was time for payback. Onlookers in the hallway at Westport Middle School jockeyed for position so they could cheer on the fight that was about to be joined. 

“This girl named Ashley mugged me, and I was going to hit her,” says Jeter. 

In the instant it took Jeter’s reflexes to react to the attack, her mind unearthed unpleasant images from her past. This 14-year-old had witnessed incidents within her family that she was determined not to reenact.

Her heart raced as she contemplated decisions that would shape much more than the immediate moment.

“I wanted to be the bigger person,” Jeter recalls, now three years removed from that pivotal episode in her young life. “I am not a trouble maker. People wanted to see a fight and I wasn’t going to give them one.” 

The taut muscles in her forearm released the grip they held on her thin hand as the desire for retaliation gave way to determination. The violence and bad decisions had to stop. Right here. Right now.

Even though the confrontation was diffused, the standoff triggered enforcement of the school’s policy against fighting. The principal ordered Jeter to the classroom of teacher Ericka Herd, where the student was to serve out an in-school suspension.

Jeter was about to go from being mugged to experiencing love in the span of a few life-changing minutes.

“I remember watching her walk down the hallway,” says Herd, who was also the Westport track coach. “I was always on the lookout for natural athletes. I called for her to come over and said, ‘You’re coming out for my track team.’”

“I didn’t know anything about her personality,” says Herd. “She just shrugged her shoulders and said, ‘Sure, when does it start?’”

Jeter reported for practice, and went through the physical demands of preparing for competition. Herd says it didn’t take long for Jeter’s athletic talent to blossom. 

“I think it came at the first track meet,” says Herd, who still holds the 800-meter record at the Sea Ray Relays in Knoxville, Tennessee. “I will never forget it. She was running in the 400 at the Mason-Dixon games.” 

Jeter was so new to this sport and so unaware of her surroundings that she didn’t realize it required two laps around the 200-meter track to complete the race. 

“Just not knowing that she had to go two laps, Jazzmin ran one lap and stopped,” says Herd, who ran track at Eastern Kentucky University. “Then all the fans hollered for her to keep running. She had built such a large lead that she was able to start again, continue running the race, and still won it.” 

A star was born. An athletic career had started. And a life was finding a purpose. 

“Track has helped me find out who I am,” says Jeter. 

Even though the budding star was enjoying success in athletics, there remained problems as home.

“My mom is a pretty good mom,” says Jeter. “She’s had some struggles. She’s been on drugs. And my dad, he’s locked up in prison. He was bad with drugs, too. I haven’t been around him since I was 16. He is not a part of my life anymore.”

The instability at home forced Jeter and her two younger sisters to move in with a family member. But when that great aunt passed away, there was no place for the girls to turn. So they became wards of the state and took up residence at The Home of the Innocents, a long-time Louisville refuge for kids in crisis. 

Meanwhile back at Westport, Jeter was starting to see Ericka Herd as more than a coach and teacher. She was becoming a mentor. 

“I was on vacation visiting a friend in Philadelphia when the phone rang,” says Herd who grew up in Pittsburgh. “It was a social worker asking if I would be interested in taking Jazzmin home to live with me. Jazzmin and I had not talked about it at all.” 

Now it was Herd’s turn to ponder a life-changing decision similar to the one her young protege had made in the hallway at Westport. 

“So I called Coach Herd and asked if I could come live with her and she said ‘yes,’” says Jeter. “Every day I called her and I talked to her. Next thing you know, the court split up me and my sisters, and I went with my coach.” 

“I am a Christian,” says Herd, a 7th grade language arts teacher at Westport. “And I felt like God was telling me that If I said ‘no’ I was being selfish. I have a lot of love to give, so why wouldn’t I take someone in who is in need.” In addition to taking legal custody of Jeter in June of 2005, Herd tracked down the grandmother of Jazzmin’s sisters with whom the girls are now living. 

“She’s really been a very good role model for me in my life,” says Jeter, who has a younger sister on the track team at Pleasure Ridge Park. “She didn’t have to take me in. She doesn’t have kids. So for her to give up half the stuff she did to take me in was a blessing. I asked her to take me in. And the fact that she is my track coach made it even better.” 

Herd was now making a major adjustment in her life from single working professional to mother of a teenager. They both had a lot to learn. 

“She helped me with my reading and other homework,” says Jeter. “I lived a regular life. I had chores. I had to walk the dog. I got my license with her. She was like a mother to me. She taught me so much.”

“It was totally new. I went from teacher-to-coach-to-parent. I had to change my whole style of living because now I have a student who comes home with me,” says Herd, now in her second season as the girls’ track coach at Ballard High School. 

“Kids become a carbon copy of you. So there were some things I had to change,” she says. “I couldn’t go out as much anymore because now I have someone with me. I had to adapt to the responsibility of being a parent. I had to start making plans for two.”

Jeter and Herd lived as mother and daughter for three years. Together, they found their way through the challenges of being a teenager and being the parent of a teen. 

“Seeing her self-esteem grow was the best part of our days together,” says Herd. “She started to realize that despite all the challenges she had faced, this world isn’t so bad.” 

With Jeter’s personal life stabilized and her maturity level growing, the high school senior discovered a yearning to be reunited with her birth mother. 

“I really wanted to be with my mom and have a relationship with my mom,” says Jeter. “So when I turned 18, I decided to live with my mommy.” 

Jeter says she could have never rejoined her biological mother without the parenting she received from her coach. 

“I am escaping from my past. Being better than my parents who made some wrong decisions,” says the young lady who plans to be the first college graduate in her family. “I wouldn’t be where I am today if it wasn’t for her. So I am very thankful for that. She made me safe.”

“That makes me cry,” says Herd, who remained Jeter’s track coach through the State Track Meet last month, where Jeter took 5th in the 100 Meter, 4th in the 400, and won the 200. “A lot of people ask why did I do it. I felt like I had to do it. God was telling me of all I’ve given you, you must share.” 

Jeter now sees her life as one filled with possibilities. She has accepted a track scholarship with Eastern Kentucky University and is determined to represent the United States in the Olympic games one day. And those dreams have the chance to be realized because Ericka Herd decided to be not only Jazzmin Jeter’s coach, but also her mom.

Garry Gupton is the president of The Integrity Media Network. Contact him at ggupton@theintegritymedianetwork.com.