Upon entering Norwood High School, Kesegosetse Notlotle decided to try numerous sports: volleyball in the fall, swim in the winter, and track in the spring. Volleyball and swim would eventually fall by the wayside, and track would eventually be her go to sport.

Originally, she had to be enticed to try out for the track by friends already on the team. Once there, the then freshman found the sport to be cool and appealing, and the 400 hurdles jumped out at her. She would attempt to take on the 100 hurdles first and was inserted into relays during invitationals.

“Having been a gymnast, I thought that the hurdles were a graceful sport that I could excel at,” Notlotle said. “Boy was I wrong; I kept falling and the workouts were terrible. Thank God I was also doing the long jump and had something to fall back on.”

Taking part in the long jump Notlotle soon found out that she was rather good at the jumping event. She began the season jumping 13’ 8” and by the time her freshman campaign came to an end that spring she would have jumped 15’ 8” right into the Norwood freshman record books.

“It was at this point that I knew jumping was for me and hurdling was definitely not,” she said. “I was inches away from qualifying that year, so it gave me the motivation to go out and work harder during the off-season.”

With motivation in hand, Notlotle began hitting the gym on a more frequent basis. Entering her sophomore season, she decided to drop both volleyball and swim and focus solely on track and field. In getting stronger during the off-season, she found herself jumping 16’ 7” by the end of the winter season.

Later that spring, the sophomore would add the triple jump to her repertoire with a suggestion from one of the captains.

“I really didn’t know much about it, the only thing I knew was that we only had one girl taking part in the event,” Notlotle said. “It was very complicated at first and I was scared that I was going to miss the pit. Luckily, I got the hang of it, and it wasn’t all that bad. I continued to do it consistently and got the steps (hop, skip, jump) down quickly and ran down the track into the sandpit.”

One of her first leaps into the pit resulted in a jump of 32-feet, and by the time the season closed out a few months later, Notlotle saw herself jump a remarkable 36’ 4” at the Tri Valley League Meet.

As she entered her junior year at Norwood, Notlotle set high expectations for herself, but when the winter season didn’t go as planned, she was unsure of what was going to come in the spring. While participating in the triple jump, she continually saw her jumps go up and eventually found herself moving from the 28-foot board to the 32-foot board. By moving four feet backwards, she found herself a little nervous at first.

“Moving boards scared me – I didn’t want to land on my face and embarrass myself,” she said. “When you are looking down at the pit is looks much further than it really is, but again, once I got familiar with it everything was ok.”

Coming into her junior campaign Notlotle didn’t really expect much from herself, she just wanted to continually improve her leaps in both events. By the time the season concluded, the junior captain, who had scored the most points for the Mustangs this spring in dual meets, also found herself relatively close to not one but two school records.

“Kese jumped 17’ 1” in the long jump, which is just 3 inches short of the school record set by Sarah Meeks in 1993,” Mustang Track and Field Coach Aimee Worcester said. “She is also closing in on the triple jump record, and this past season jumped 36’ 1.5.” She is currently second in line behind the Meeks sisters, who hold both records.” 

Worcester noted that during the TVL Meet Notlotle was leading in both events after the preliminaries when the rain washed out the rest of the afternoon, and eventually the Meet. It was never able to be rescheduled, and the junior missed out on possibly two TVL championships.

Notlotle was also able to qualify for both events in the Division 4 State Tournament where she placed fourth in the triple jump and did not participate in the long jump. 

Coach Worcester also considers Notlotle to be a good sprinter and will use her in relays to help the team.

“I do it for the team,” Notlotle said. “Running distance is fun and I like being part of the DMR relay, which we finished second at the Division 4 States.”

As she gets ready for her final season with the Mustangs track team, Notlotle is planning on doing more strength training to get herself ready, and although she doesn’t really like sprinting, it’s the foundation of her events. She has also joined the Metro Cobras, a club track team, in order to prepare herself for the run at the records.

“Honestly, it is not all about breaking the records, it’s about the numbers I am looking for (18’ in the long jump and 38’ in the triple jump),” she said. “If I hit those numbers, the records will come.”

Worcester believes that the now senior, without a doubt, will be raising her name to the gymnastic rafters come next year.

“She is a very reliable individual and with the season ending very abruptly with all the rain she was robbed,” the Norwood Coach said. “Come next year those records will be hers without a doubt.”

Following high school, Notlotle is looking to continue her jumping on the collegiate stage. Although it is still early in the process, she has been approached by a couple of schools in the New York area, but she also has other options on the horizon. However, having grown up in New Jersey and having cousins in New York, she would be open to attending college there.

Photo courtesy of Kesegosetse Notlotle