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Lumsden’s journey leads him over high jump bar

Tribune Chronicle / John Vargo Austintown Fitch’s Jakari Lumsden, left, and Nate Armstrong, pose for a picture at Fitch High School. The Falcons junior is heading to state in the high jump, and he has had people like Armstrong, his mother, Lori, and others helping him succeed on and off the track.

Tribune Chronicle / John Vargo Austintown Fitch's Jakari Lumsden, left, and Nate Armstrong, pose for a picture at Fitch High School. The Falcons junior is heading to state in the high jump, and he has had people like Armstrong, his mother, Lori, and others helping him succeed on and off the track.AUSTINTOWN — Lori Lumsden saw her son Jakari go up and over the high jump bar at 6-feet-5, just one inch short of his personal record.

The 6-foot-2, 195-pound Austintown Fitch High School junior athlete did more than win last week’s Division I Austintown Regional boys high jump title. He made his mother proud.

“Oh my goodness, I was elated,” Lori said.

She has seen the progress Jakari, 17, has made in his career — and his life. He’s a standout football and basketball player for the Falcons as well.

Lori’s late husband, James, passed away in July 2007 of lung disease when Jakari was 7.

“At a young age, his dad used to go out and throw the baseball, throw the football,” Lori said. “He was very hands-on with Jakari as far as sports since he was probably 2. Very quiet type man, church man. Loved his children.”

Jakari grew up and was a great Hot Stove baseball player, but football was always first in his heart. Jakari’s talent is a bit hereditary. Lori’s uncles, Mel and Bill Triplett, both went to Girard High School and played in the NFL. So, it’s not surprising that football quickly became his passion — so much that Lori said other Little League coaches fought over having her son on their teams.

Enter Nate Armstrong. He coaches the Westside Patriots football team and saw something in Jakari during his seventh-grade year. An instant friendship formed with Armstrong’s younger son, Christian, who is a freshman at Austintown Fitch. Nate Armstrong also is a family liaison/case worker for the Austintown Local School District.

At the time, Jakari was going to St. Joseph the Provider in Youngstown, where he lived with his mother. He was heading to Ursuline High School, staying close to home.

Armstrong, who lives in Austintown with his wife, Marie, and two sons, saw more and more of Jakari over the next couple of years — right before ninth grade. Marie runs a daycare from her home, which meant having Jakari over wasn’t anything new to the Armstrongs.

“If you know me and my wife, we’ve always been around kids,” Nate said. “It was another one of the kids that was over. He happened to be one of the ones that didn’t want to leave.”

That’s when Armstrong called Lori and asked if Jakari could come to Fitch.

Now she did her homework on the Armstrongs and saw how he was around his Patriots team — a quiet influence. She knew he had two sons, and Jakari got along well with them.

“I’m petrified of winter driving, petrified,” Lori said. “I said I don’t know how I’m going to do this. I can’t drive Jakari to school every day in the winter time. That’s when coach Nate said, ‘We’ll help you, or he could come over here and stay with us through the week?’

“That’s how it all came about.”

Armstrong said, just like his sons, Jakari is focused on education first, so they all have a great chance at continuing not only sports but academics at the collegiate level.

Jakari is one of the family there with the Armstrongs.

“We treat him like he’s one of our sons,” Armstrong said. “He has chores — wash dishes, has to take out the trash, just like everyone else. The main focus is they keep the importance of their education.”

Seth Steiner, the Austintown Fitch boys track and field coach, who teaches accounting at the high school, said Jakari is a great student.

“That’s a product of what he does when he’s at home,” Steiner said.

Whether Jakari is with the Armstrongs or at home with his mother in Youngstown, he is supported and loved.

“It makes everything easier,” Jakari said. “Everybody pushes you. It makes it easier to stay on track. Coach Armstrong has been staying on me ever since I left playing for little league.

“He’s like another father figure.”

Lori comes to all of Jakari’s meets.

“I rather have 1,000 people watching me than just her. It’s a lot of pressure when she’s there,” he said. “Whenever I miss or have a bad jump, she’ll let me know. You’ll be able to hear it. I had my coach to tell her to be quiet. She’s scared to do it.”

“He told me I make him nervous, something to that nature. I don’t know why,” Lori said.

Jakari’s jump coach, Katrina Rettburg, has been working with him since the end of last year when he went 6-0 on his first jump.

“You could tell he was very athletic at a young age, as far as running the ball and jumping,” Armstrong said. “I didn’t realize he was going to take on high jump as well as he did. With his great coach, Katrina, she did an awesome job with him in a year and half to get him to where he is now.”

Armstrong wants Jakari to leave Fitch with a great legacy.

“Just to be that positive person that younger ones can follow in behind him and try to achieve the same things or do better than what he’s done,” Armstrong said.

Lori said she likes to provide Jakari with some extra motivation during his meets.

“When Jakari doesn’t do well, I tell him, ‘Do it for daddy,’ “ she said. “Couple of times I had to say it to him at his jumps. I knew he was going over the bar.”

As for Lori, she’s anxiously awaiting Saturday’s Division I state high jump final at Jesse Owens Memorial Stadium in Columbus, starting at 3 p.m.

“I’m so proud,” Lori said. “I cry nights sometimes. I’m so proud of that boy. I tell him every day. There’s not a day that doesn’t go past that I don’t tell him that. I love him and I’m proud of him.

“I wish his father was here to see it.”

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