Sharline White-Hernandez
Clarkstown South 1992
When Sharline White galloped down the triple-jump runway, it brought to mind one of those cartoonish stick figures in an animated movie frame sequence. When she unfurled her wiry frame and stretched out those Silly Putty legs, you just hoped she wouldn’t outleap the sand pit.
One of her coaches at Clarkstown South, Ray Kondracki, once said: “She’s a real thoroughbred. She has so much potential. The sky is the limit with her.” Sharline indeed harnessed that potential and forged a legacy as one of the premier combination jumpers in Rockland girls’ track history.
Sharline culminated her senior year in style. At the National Scholastic Outdoor Championships in California, she won the triple jump at 40 feet 6 inches and finished second – losing by just a quarter-inch – in the long jump at 18-8 ¼, both personal best distances. Those marks currently rank No. 3 and No. 6, respectively, on the all-time Rockland lists.
The long-striding Viking preceded that outing with a double gold-medal effort (38-7 ¾, 18-8) and Most Outstanding Performer honors at the Eastern States championships. Among her other highlights in the spring of 1992:
Sharline also excelled in winter and spring County meets, racking up seven gold medals in the triple jump (two), long jump (two), 55 meters, 100 meters and 800-meter relay. On the all-time indoor Rockland list she ranks No. 5 in the triple jump (37-11 ½) and No. 7 in the long jump (18-3).
A native of Kingston, Jamaica, Sharline moved with her family to West Nyack in April 1986, near the end of her freshman year. The cultural transition took some time, Sharline says: “I spoke English, but very fast, sort of a patois. I understood everyone clearly, but no one could understand me clearly.”
One thing she was familiar with, however, was track and field, thanks to mandatory gym-class athletic training back in Jamaica. When Sharline entered her sophomore year at South, the basketball coach saw that beanstalk 5-foot-8 frame and immediately pursued her for hoops, but Kondracki – her science teacher as well as the boys’ track coach – was more persuasive. Sharline’s debut in winter track was inauspicious, to say the least: She lasted one day.
“I was used to a much warmer climate,” she says. “I told Kondracki, ‘It’s too cold.’ I went back in, changed, and quit winter track. It was cold when I came back out in the spring, but he convinced me, and I stuck it out.”
That she did. Thanks to excellent instruction by South coaches Giulia Adler, Ray Sussman, Kondracki, Art “Doc” Lebofsky and Ray Roswell, Sharline perfected her technique and speed, fed off the motivational guidance and honed her competitive instincts. She needed all that and more to meet the challenge posed by rival Quana Phillips of Spring Valley. Together, the talented duo pushed each other to unprecedented heights in Rockland girls’ jumping and set the standard for all others to follow.
“Quana was a great athlete and a great sport,” Sharline says. “Off the track we would smile, talk, warm up together. But once we got on the track, we would put on our game face and both turn on the switch. You had to put your best foot forward because you knew she was going to do the same thing.”
Invariably they would battle down to the last jump, with throngs of onlookers gravitating toward the jumping pit and exhorting them with rhythmic clapping, especially during the indoor meets at RCC. “One of us would beat the other by half an inch, then we would walk off and say, ‘That was fun, see you next week.’ I was having such a good time, having the time of my life. There was no stress, no pressure.”
Sharline accepted a full athletic scholarship to attend Fairleigh Dickinson University in Teaneck N.J., where she earned NCAA All-America honors. Her collegiate highlights in her senior year, 1996, included a 10th-place finish in the triple jump at the NCAA Indoor Championships with a leap of 42-8, and second place in the Championship division at the Penn Relays with a wind-aided 43-2 ¼. Later that year tried out for the Jamaican Olympic team, but didn’t qualify. “That was when I hung up my track shoes for good,” she says.
After graduating in ’96 with a degree in psychology, she stayed at FDU and got her master’s in education. She taught for a year at Bergenfield (N.J.) High School, and then decided to switch to special education and earned a master’s in that field at the Long Island University extension campus in Orangeburg. For five years she worked with autistic children ages 9-14 in Millwood, N.Y., and for the past four years has been an early childhood teacher at the Capt. Manuel Rivera Junior School in the Bronx.
Sharline, who’s 34, lives in Stony Point with her husband of almost two years, Jorge Hernandez. She has twin 10-year-old stepchildren, Tiana and Mario Hernandez.
Sharline was inducted into the Clarkstown South Hall of Fame as a charter member in 2001.
One of her coaches at Clarkstown South, Ray Kondracki, once said: “She’s a real thoroughbred. She has so much potential. The sky is the limit with her.” Sharline indeed harnessed that potential and forged a legacy as one of the premier combination jumpers in Rockland girls’ track history.
Sharline culminated her senior year in style. At the National Scholastic Outdoor Championships in California, she won the triple jump at 40 feet 6 inches and finished second – losing by just a quarter-inch – in the long jump at 18-8 ¼, both personal best distances. Those marks currently rank No. 3 and No. 6, respectively, on the all-time Rockland lists.
The long-striding Viking preceded that outing with a double gold-medal effort (38-7 ¾, 18-8) and Most Outstanding Performer honors at the Eastern States championships. Among her other highlights in the spring of 1992:
- Three individual gold medals at the County meet, prevailing in both horizontal jumps and the 100-meter dash to lead South to its first girls’ County meet title. Her winning triple jump mark, 40-2 ¼, represented the first time a Rockland girl had broken 40 feet outdoors.
- A meet-record 39-11 ½ at the Loucks Games.
- A sweep of both jumps at the Section 1 Class A (40-0, meet-record 18-7) and Section 1 Open (39-11 ¼, 18-4 ¼).
- Fourth place at the Keebler International meet in Chicago.
Sharline also excelled in winter and spring County meets, racking up seven gold medals in the triple jump (two), long jump (two), 55 meters, 100 meters and 800-meter relay. On the all-time indoor Rockland list she ranks No. 5 in the triple jump (37-11 ½) and No. 7 in the long jump (18-3).
A native of Kingston, Jamaica, Sharline moved with her family to West Nyack in April 1986, near the end of her freshman year. The cultural transition took some time, Sharline says: “I spoke English, but very fast, sort of a patois. I understood everyone clearly, but no one could understand me clearly.”
One thing she was familiar with, however, was track and field, thanks to mandatory gym-class athletic training back in Jamaica. When Sharline entered her sophomore year at South, the basketball coach saw that beanstalk 5-foot-8 frame and immediately pursued her for hoops, but Kondracki – her science teacher as well as the boys’ track coach – was more persuasive. Sharline’s debut in winter track was inauspicious, to say the least: She lasted one day.
“I was used to a much warmer climate,” she says. “I told Kondracki, ‘It’s too cold.’ I went back in, changed, and quit winter track. It was cold when I came back out in the spring, but he convinced me, and I stuck it out.”
That she did. Thanks to excellent instruction by South coaches Giulia Adler, Ray Sussman, Kondracki, Art “Doc” Lebofsky and Ray Roswell, Sharline perfected her technique and speed, fed off the motivational guidance and honed her competitive instincts. She needed all that and more to meet the challenge posed by rival Quana Phillips of Spring Valley. Together, the talented duo pushed each other to unprecedented heights in Rockland girls’ jumping and set the standard for all others to follow.
“Quana was a great athlete and a great sport,” Sharline says. “Off the track we would smile, talk, warm up together. But once we got on the track, we would put on our game face and both turn on the switch. You had to put your best foot forward because you knew she was going to do the same thing.”
Invariably they would battle down to the last jump, with throngs of onlookers gravitating toward the jumping pit and exhorting them with rhythmic clapping, especially during the indoor meets at RCC. “One of us would beat the other by half an inch, then we would walk off and say, ‘That was fun, see you next week.’ I was having such a good time, having the time of my life. There was no stress, no pressure.”
Sharline accepted a full athletic scholarship to attend Fairleigh Dickinson University in Teaneck N.J., where she earned NCAA All-America honors. Her collegiate highlights in her senior year, 1996, included a 10th-place finish in the triple jump at the NCAA Indoor Championships with a leap of 42-8, and second place in the Championship division at the Penn Relays with a wind-aided 43-2 ¼. Later that year tried out for the Jamaican Olympic team, but didn’t qualify. “That was when I hung up my track shoes for good,” she says.
After graduating in ’96 with a degree in psychology, she stayed at FDU and got her master’s in education. She taught for a year at Bergenfield (N.J.) High School, and then decided to switch to special education and earned a master’s in that field at the Long Island University extension campus in Orangeburg. For five years she worked with autistic children ages 9-14 in Millwood, N.Y., and for the past four years has been an early childhood teacher at the Capt. Manuel Rivera Junior School in the Bronx.
Sharline, who’s 34, lives in Stony Point with her husband of almost two years, Jorge Hernandez. She has twin 10-year-old stepchildren, Tiana and Mario Hernandez.
Sharline was inducted into the Clarkstown South Hall of Fame as a charter member in 2001.