PORTLAND, Ore. — When senior Viking sprinter Jasmine Woods was in the third grade, her mother, Aretha, got a call from her grade school principal requesting a meeting.
 
"Uh, Oh," she thought.  "What's this about?"
 
When she got there, she was greatly relieved with what the principle had to say.
 
"At that age, I used to run for fun. After school, I'd race the boys and I'd beat them," said the 22-year-old Woods, who competes for the Vikings in the 4X100 meter relay and 60-, 100- and 200-meter sprints.
 
These for-fun races had come to the principal's notice.
 
"Your daughter has a gift. She can run. She's beating all these guys. She's fast. I mean, she's really fast!" he told Woods' mother.
 
While that impressed Aretha and Jasmine's father, Jerome Woods, it was another two years before Woods began competing in organized sports.
 
In the fifth grade, she joined the West Valley Eagles in the San Fernando Valley community where she lived, running the 4x100- and 4x400-meter relays, 200- and 100-meter sprints. That lasted two years, but created inner tension.
 
"I used to run just for fun. Now I was running in competition. It affected me mentally. I say to myself…'OK, Jasmine, keep it together. You can do this,'" she recalled.
 
There was a two-year hiatus when she concentrated on her academics…but continued to run for fun…before picking up again her freshman year at Taft High School. Immediately, she proved her grade school principals' judgment right.
 
As a freshman, her 4x100 team got to the state finals and she earned her school's most improved runner title.
 
Woods transferred to the more academically rigorous El Camino Real High her sophomore year. There, she was city champion in the 100 and 200 meters, El Camino Real High School Athlete of the Year in 2010 and was team MVP in 2009. She was the fastest runner on her high school team.
 
The fact she was fast shouldn't have been a surprise, though. Her mom played basketball and ran track in school, and her dad played basketball and ran cross country. Older brother Jerome, 25, played high school basketball and still plays at the club level. Her fraternal twin brother, Joshua, posted a time of 10.7 seconds in the 100 meters, qualified for the city championship finals and won the most valuable runner award during his senior year in high school.
 
Still, in her view, another accomplishment her senior year equaled her performance on the track. She won the El Camino Real High School Academic Excellence Award.
 
So, being that fast, she'd had her eyes set on running at the D-1 college level early, right?
 
Well, no. It wasn't until she began hearing from university coaches her senior year that she realized her talent could help her get a college education. She heard from Cal State Los Angeles, Concordia, the University of California San Diego and the Naval Academy.

"I visited everyone who was interested, but I wasn't ready to leave home at that point. I was 17 and wanted to figure out what I wanted to do, then go," she said.
 
Also there were financial considerations.
 
So, Woods enrolled in nearby Los Angeles Valley Community College, where she was a four-time All-American performer in the 100- and 200-meter sprints and the 4x100 and 4x400 relays.  As a freshman, she won the state 100-meter championship and her team won the 4x100-meter relay where, running the anchor leg, she set the school record with a 46.21-second performance. She was voted team MVP as a freshman and sat out her sophomore year.
 
Once again, she was the fastest person on her team.
 
Woods came to Viking head coach Ronnye Harrison's attention last year while he was perusing on-line records of some California community college prospects. Her statistics jumped out at him, he said, "because she was inconsistent."
 
"She had some good times and some bad times.  Sometimes that comes from training, so I saw some potential."
 
By this time, she was ready to move to a bigger stage, but was still hesitant about going a long way from home.
 
"Ultimately, I decided it was time to push myself out of my comfort zone," she said.
 
Woods heard from the University of Nevada Las Vegas and from Cal Poly as well as PSU. She decided it was time to "go to a different state and see different places."
 
She chose PSU because she liked the coaches' approach and personality. When she arrived, she was struggling with injuries ("I had shin splints in my left leg"), and didn't immediately perform up to expectations. She and her coaches agree that was due to several issues.
 
Her first experience was in indoors, and she'd never run indoors before.
 
"I think she had some problems adapting to the weather, to the environment, to the consistent level of training. She had a rash of nagging injury complaints that I think were more mental than physical. She was something of a frustration to us," said Harrison.
 
Woods admitted that she initially didn't like running indoors "because the tracks were different" and she "didn't perform well on bigger tracks."
 
In fact, her time at the 2014 UW Indoor Preview meet didn't qualify her to run in this year's event, where she finished in the top 20 of more than 100 participants. Harrison had to write a letter promising she'd improved dramatically over last season's performance.
 
Also, it was the first time in her career that she was among the fastest members of her team, not the fastest.
 
"She'd always been the fastest on her team and you get a bit complacent. She went from the fastest to being among the fastest and that's a tough transition," said Harrison.
 
Yes, that bothered her a bit, said Woods.
 
"At first it bothered me. I wanted to be the best overall. But, I realized my teammates had great mechanics and that made me work harder. Overall, it's good to have the competition. We push each other."
 
The transition to Big Sky Conference-level completion was also an eye opener in other ways.
 
"At LA Valley, we trained four days a week. Here, it was six days and we lift a lot of weights here. We didn't do that there…and there are a lot more track meets," she said.
 
Woods said she'd had a lot to learn when she arrived.
 
"I needed to learn how to take better care of myself on and off the track," said Woods. "I had to learn how to be patient and to take direction from my coach."
 
But when the 2014 outdoor season began, "everything changed," said Harrison. The first day of practice, there were no more mysterious injuries. She was an outdoor standout."
 
Indeed she was.
 
Woods was an NCAA regional qualifier in the 200 meters and her 4x100 team also qualified. She was an All-Big Sky performer in the 100 (11.55 seconds) and 200 (23.88) and was part of a school record-breaking 4x100-meter relay team at the Big Sky Championships. She currently ranks third all-time at PSU in the 200 meters.
 
And, the sociology major, social work minor, was Academic All-Big Sky and USTFCCCA All-Academic.
 
After graduation, Woods hopes to start a non-profit organization working with adolescents and youth groups.
 
She has this spring's outdoor and next winter's indoor seasons before she's finished her Viking career.
 
"I just want to mature into a professional athlete and to aim for great personal records in my events…and I want to qualify for the national championships (presumably in the 200-meter dash because she lists that as her favorite event)."
 
Harrison thinks Woods has a great future before she's finished here.
 
"She still hasn't run what I think she can. I'd like to see her be league champion in the 60 and 200, but she has stiff competition…from Genna Settle on her own team," Harrison said, indicating the strength he's built into the Viking women's track team.