Olympic Gold Medalist & Four-Time World Champion Dwight Phillips Joins SPIRE as International Track and Field Ambassador

SPIRE Academy’s integrated team works to develop the entire student athlete, placing equal focus and extra emphasis on the development of strong minds, strong bodies and strong character. To prepare its student athletes to achieve peak performance in school, at work and in life, SPIRE has assembled a support network that now includes high-performing professional athletes that serve as “Ambassadors”.

SPIRE Ambassadors play a key role in the development of its student athletes, occasionally working with them one-on-one to help them enhance their personal performance, improve athletic ability and gain a competitive advantage. In addition to this mentoring, SPIRE Ambassadors work with the Academy’s integrated team to help develop innovative, cutting-edge programming. They also provide insights to SPIRE’s coaches and performance training staff to perfect a program of exceptional coaching, reporting, testing and assessment for every Academy athlete to ensure they are ready to perform at the next level.

The most recent addition to SPIRE’s corps of Ambassadors is long jumper Dwight Phillips, an Olympic gold medalist and four-time world champion. A multi-event track and field athlete before deciding to focus on the long jump, Phillips was the best American performer in that event in the 2000 Sydney Olympics. After winning both the IAAF indoor and outdoor World Championships in 2003, he entered the 2004 Olympics in Athens ranked number one in the world. The jump that won him a gold medal was the fourth biggest in Olympic history, after Bob Beamon (1968) and Carl Lewis (1988, 1992). In 2018, Phillips was inducted into the National Track and Field Hall of Fame.

“Having the opportunity to mentor student athletes at a top-notch facility like SPIRE alongside a team of such outstanding coaches, trainers, and support staff, is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for me,” said Phillips. “I respect SPIRE’s emphasis on helping athletes become physically stronger, faster, and more agile while also helping them become confident, self-disciplined human beings who thrive under pressure and are ready to tackle the world. I’m really looking forward to being a part of this.”

Phillips’ life experiences, not only as a superior track and field athlete but as someone who has battled back from adversity, make him uniquely qualified to mentor young people. In his book The Will to Win, Phillips tells the story of a catastrophe that nearly derailed his Olympic dreams. At the age of 8, he was involved in a serious motorcycle accident that left him with a broken leg. The diagnosis was so severe, in fact, that he was told he would never be able to participate in sports again. Rather than discourage him, however, the setbacks Phillips encountered only served to motivate him further toward his goals. As a SPIRE Ambassador, Phillips frequently draws on stories like these to teach athletes about the value of channeling negative emotions and reframing difficult experiences to propel them forward.

Phillips joins 12-time Olympic medalist and swimming world record holder Ryan Lochte, track and field Olympian and three-time gold medalist Tianna Bartoletta, swimmer, three-time Olympian, and Olympic team captain Elizabeth Beisel, and American freestyle and butterfly sprint swimmer Caeleb Dressel in SPIRE’s corps of Ambassadors.