On a steamy Friday night in Atlanta 20 years ago, NIU Director of Track and Field Connie Teaberry sat, along with thousands of other elite athletes from around the globe, in Fulton County Stadium waiting to enter one of the grandest stages in all of sports, the opening ceremony of the Centennial Olympic Games.

A native of St. Louis, Mo., Teaberry attended Kansas State where she would become a six-time All-American in the high jump. Even with her incredible collegiate resume, as Teaberry's Kansas State career closed in 1992 her intention was to move into a career in nursing.

"I thought I was done after college," Teaberry recalls. "I received some calls asking about coming to train and coach but my mindset was that I wasn't a coach, I was going to be a nurse. After about the fourth call I started to think, 'okay, some people see something in me that I don't see.'"

With her mind made to pursue that "something" the goal became clear, seeing her competitive career through to the 1996 Olympics.

Teaberry took a position as a graduate assistant at the University of Kentucky, allowing her to train while entering the coaching world. The following year in 1993, she qualified for the World Championships, finishing 18th in Stuttgart, Germany. Continuing to compete internationally, while also coaching, Teaberry made her second World Championships team in 1995 where she finished 31st in Gothenburg, Sweden.

"The feeling of making the team (for the World Championships) isn't really any different than making an Olympic team," Teaberry explains. "The title is just bigger, so the accomplishment is bigger, but it is still an opportunity to represent the United States at the highest level of track and field in the world. It was an exclamation point to the season, making those teams."

As the calendar turned to 1996 the goal for Teaberry, now working as an assistant coach at the University of Toledo, was clearly in sight, the Olympic Games in Atlanta.

With her full-time coaching commitments at Toledo through the collegiate season, Teaberry wasn't always able to train in the most ideal circumstances, including once having to clear nearly a foot of snow just to practice. With her coach, Darryl Anderson, still at Kentucky, Teaberry also traveled once or twice a month from Toledo to Lexington as he attempted to maintain her sharpness heading into the most important meets of her career.  As the summer arrived, Teaberry readied for her chance to become an Olympian.

"The U.S. trials are one of the toughest events in the world, some people say tougher than the (Olympic) games," said Teaberry. "Even though I had made those previous teams there were always three or four athletes that were ranked higher than I was, but it was about getting it done at the right time."

At both the U.S. Trials and the Olympics, the high jump competition is split over two days, with the first day serving as qualifying for the second day's finals. For day one of the trials, a confident Teaberry wore her hair down, at her mother's request. But when it came time for the finals, it was back in her traditional ponytail, as the serious business was about to take place. So serious that she struggled to sleep the night before.

"Nervous. That was probably the most nervous competition I ever had," Teaberry recalls of the Olympic Trials finals. "This was THE meet, the four years of training to get to this point. The night before I couldn't go to sleep. I was up every two hours, praying, wishing, hoping, it was a back-and-forth tug of war with my mind.

"When it was time to get out there and jump the first thing on my mind was my lack of sleep, but then it was about the sacrifice I had made and to just go out and get it done. Thanks to my coach, Darryl Anderson, he had me in a very solid mental state when it was time to strap up and get it done."

With the bar set at 6'4 3/4, a height she had cleared just once previously, and four competitors left vying for the three spots on the Olympic team, Teaberry missed her first two attempts at the height.

"Now I'm freaking out," Teaberry remembers with a laugh. "I went over to my coach and I was frantic. He is a straight-forward kind of guy and I am asking him what I am doing wrong. He looked at me and said, 'Connie. What is this event?'

"High jump," she responded.

"Then go jump high."

"It was just that simple," Teaberry explains. "He knew I could do it and that's what I did and I made the team on my third attempt."

Teaberry was one of two athletes, along with Tisha Waller, to clear the height and as the bar went up for the remaining two jumpers the realization set in that she had made the Olympic team.

"I couldn't even talk really, it was an exciting moment, a fulfilling moment. To have my family, old coaches, old teachers in the stands to watch me make the team, I was just elated."

With about a month between the trials and the games, Teaberry's focus between the meets was to be as strong and healthy as possible heading to Atlanta, something she had struggled with at times heading into previous World Championships.

On July 19, 1996, the Olympics were set to begin in Atlanta, Teaberry was getting ready for the big night that the entire world would be watching.

"The (athletes) village had a place where you could get your hair done," Teaberry remembers of the day. "So I went and got my hair done so I would be ready for pictures and the opening ceremony. They shuttled us over to the old baseball stadium and we sat there for hours in our hats and long skirts. Everyone was fanning each other, it was hot and humid, but we didn't care because it was the opening ceremonies for the Olympic Games."

As the parade of nations began, the athletes filed out of Fulton County Stadium into the new Olympic Stadium next door.

"There was a long ramp and we walked down the ramp, the stadium was packed and there were so many lights. We didn't see the other countries walk in (by tradition the host nation enters last) but there were monitors so we could see them go in. I remember seeing David Robinson and Charles Barkley, you couldn't miss them because they were towering over everybody."

The ceremonies that night reached a crescendo when Muhammad Ali emerged to light the Olympic cauldron.

"When Muhammad Ali came out, we didn't know that he was lighting the torch," Teaberry describes. "When he came out, seeing that moment, it was unbelievable. It was an honor, even looking back now, it was an honor and a blessing to experience that with all of those other athletes."

Following the opening ceremony, Teaberry and her coach had made the decision to return to Kentucky for the first week of the games to maintain a regular training schedule before returning to Atlanta when the track and field competition began during the second week.

On the morning of August 1, 1996, Atlanta was greeted with heavy rain. Later that night, Michael Johnson would electrify the Olympic Stadium with a world record time of 19.32 seconds in the 200 meters but the afternoon saw the beginning of the women's high jump competition.

"That day is the same as a trials day," Teaberry remembers. "You are nervous, you just want to do well. You get out there, you are nervous, there are two pits going, you don't know what the other pit is doing. Unlike at trials where, even though I was nervous, I was confident. I didn't know all those other people, at the trials you know everyone.

"It's raining, it's wet, you could slip, but what do you have to lose."

Teaberry only needed a combined four tries to clear the first three heights (1.75m, 1.80m and 1.85m) and just 12 athletes remained in her qualifying round as the bar was raised to 1.90m. On her third, and final, attempt at 1.90, Teaberry cleared the bar, leaving her as one of just nine competitors remaining in her group.

Advancing to the finals was just not to be however, as Teaberry missed on her three attempts at 1.93m, falling out of the competition while the other eight jumpers in her qualifying round advanced to the finals.

"My goal was to make it to that second day, I wanted to have a good showing," Teaberry recalls. "Although I think I did, tying for 15th, I didn't make it to that next day. But I didn't walk away thinking that I hadn't done everything I could do."

Teaberry smiles as she looks back at her accomplishments of 20 years ago. An elite collegiate athlete who assumed her competitive days were over, Teaberry followed the beliefs that others had in her abilities and, though a four-year process of hard work, reached the pinnacle of sport. A lesson she tries to pass down still today with her student-athletes at NIU.  

"That is the thing I am trying to instill in our athletes, that there is a process," Teaberry explains. "You can't just jump on the white horse and everything will be okay, you have to put the work in. You have to be disciplined if you want to reach your goals, even if your coach isn't always there.

"As a coach you typically get two hours max with your athletes, which leaves 22 other hours in the day. What are you doing to make yourself great? Nutrition, sleep, everything. It might not always be right, but you have to make an effort for it to be right most of the time."