JW: I want to beat him.

What was your injury?

DM: It was bizarre. A year ago, I was jumping at indoor conference. Finally, we were both uninjured, and it was going to be equal competition. During my last jump at like 14 feet, I randomly felt like something in my foot popped, and it turns out I tore my plantar plate, which has taken me out for, basically, until the start of January. I’m still a little injured, but I’m figuring out how to work through it because this goal means a lot to me. I really want to see us both up there, and I think we can do it.

How do you feel like you’ve grown over the years as leaders, teammates, and competitors?

DM: I think we’ve gotten really good at supporting each other through our jumping.

JW: There’s been times when I’ve been hurt, and Daniel’s not hurt. When we lived together, that was important. That was when I was out for the longest time in my career, so he always told me to keep my head up when I was kind of down, watching Netflix and eating chips in the room. Daniel definitely helped me get through that phase and encouraged me to keep working out and doing the right things.

DM: Over the four years, what we’ve really learned is how to help each other out during meets. Every pole vaulter has their different cadence of how they want to handle a meet — whether they want their step checked or whether they want to know how their swing-up was or different aspects of that. So now I know exactly what Jahkeem needs when he gets on the runway. I know I need to cheer him on and get his step and check for these three things that he may not be doing consistently in the vault to get him over the highest height possible, and he’s always there to do the same for me.

JW: I definitely agree with that. We’ve been vaulting together for four years, so I know what his tendencies are — if he needs a bigger pole, when his jump is under, and exactly what he’s working on. That’s one of the things — familiarity. If the younger guys tell me to do something and Daniel says something different, I listen to Daniel since we’ve been together longer and know each other’s vault very well.

How has your friendship evolved over the years? How do you make each other better?

DM: It’s definitely grown throughout the years. As soon as we got here, we started going to practices together and were each other’s initial friend group. We roomed together sophomore year and started picking up on each other’s habits. Whenever one of us is supposed to be dieting, the other one is watching out. Like in Stevie, sometimes I’ll see Jahkeem walking around with a plate of fries, and I’ll be like, “Bro, you know you’re not supposed to eat that.” But sometimes he’ll see me doing the same and will give me the same feedback. We push each other to be the best athletes, but also best people inside the classroom as well. I’m always cheering him on whenever he gets any kind of job position, like his awesome position inside the Career Center, or whenever he’s applying to law schools or whenever I’m applying to Ph.D. programs, we’re there to cheer each other on.

JW: Daniel is definitely smarter than me. He does physics and a lot of other things. He’s the leader and creator of the Black Scientist Guild, and he does a lot of conferences. I’ve always looked up to all of the academic stuff he’s always been able to do along with coming to practice every day and being a good teammate. We’re similar in some ways, but he looks at things differently and sees things differently. I’ll ask him for advice, and he sees things in a completely different way than I do, which is sometimes frustrating but, more often than not, very helpful. In some ways he’s my mentor.