Influential Women of South Texas: Amy Acuff

Amy Acuff knows how to aim high. The record-setting high jumper has made it to five Olympics, after all.

That drive to always aim for higher goals has been evident since her high school days, and not just the high jump. Though the Calallen graduate was serious about pursuing her passion and talent for high jumping, Acuff applied her athleticism to other sports in high school. She participated in team relay in track and also played basketball. In fact, she was a member of the Class 4A girls state championship team in 1990.

“It’s so refreshing to see her want to excel in other things. She’s the top student in her class, she’s No. 1. She has a burning desire to be good at whatever she does,” Coach Leta Andrews described Acuff in 1992. “She doesn’t take any shortcuts. She works.”

And that drive to improve led to multiple records and personal bests. The 6-foot2-inch athlete who now lives in Austin represented the United States five times in the Summer Olympics from 1996 to 2012. And as attendees at the Texas state UIL track and field competitions know, her record 6-foot 2 1/4-inch high jump set in 1991 as a junior still stands more than 25 years later. She also set a national record of 6 feet 4 inches at the Pan American Junior Olympic team in Austria, which stood until 2015. She achieved her personal best high jump in Zurich in 2003: 6 feet, 7 inches.

“The fact that you can keep pushing your body and coming up with new ways to get that extra centimeter here or there, that's what intrigues me, and that's what keeps me coming back," she told the Caller-Times in 2004 as she prepared for her third trip to the Olympic games.

"I'm more interested in figuring out what's possible."