At the 2022 Essex County Championships, Livingston High School’s track and field team needed to put points on the board.
Although Livingston led after the first day of competition, strong second-day performances from its opponents threatened the Lancers’ tenuous hold of the county title. The competition came down to the final event: the girls’ discus throw.
Jessica Oji, then a “bored [Livingston] freshman looking for a spring sport,” was one of three Lancers entered in the event after medaling twice on day one of the championships. With the county title on the line, Livingston depended on Oji to break 100 feet for the first time in her career. She had only successfully contested the discus once before, throwing 83 feet and 10 inches.
It took a few throws for Oji to get her rhythm. 91 feet and 5 inches on the first throw — a new personal record. Despite a foul throw in the second round, Oji’s third throw was good enough to enter the finals as the seventh seed in an eight-person field.
Half the field fouls were out on the first throw of the final round, but Oji persevered, raising her personal best with a 99-foot, eight-inch throw. She moved into fifth, but there was still some fuel left in the tank. With everything on the line, Oji spun and released, sending the disc 117 feet and five inches away from the mound. When the dust settled, Oji was seven-and-a-half feet ahead of second place.
“She just came out and hit exactly what she needed to hit, beat exactly the person that she needed to beat, when she needed to do it,” Livingston throws coach Eugene Asimou said. “And our whole team lost their minds. It was just an amazing experience to see that.”
“I think I threw her in the air,” Asimou added. “It was crazy.”
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Oji spent her sophomore year of high school between the soccer field and the mound. Before she was a shot put star, Oji was a standout goalie, putting up 61 saves in 15 games during her sophomore year. When she entered high school, she dreamed of eventually playing Division I soccer at Penn State.
On May 30, 2023, Oji was “going for ball contention” when an opponent sent her the wrong way.
“I planted my foot in the ground, and my foot didn’t move, it just kind of wobbled out,” Oji recounted.
One week before she was set to compete at the New Jersey Meet of Champions, Oji was out of commission with a torn anterior cruciate ligament and a partially torn lateral collateral ligament. She started the summer before her junior year with a quad graft surgery and physical therapy instead of preseason soccer practices.
For the first time in her adolescent life, Oji started a school year without playing a sport. She wasn’t even sure if she wanted to go back to sports in general, let alone track and field.
Oji initially chose track and field as her spring specialty because of her siblings. Oji’s older brothers, Michel and Ray Oji, also competed in the sport — Michel Oji in throws, while Ray Oji was a hurdler and sprinter.
It’s no wonder Oji was “bit[ten] by the track bug,” as her high school coach put it. Her sister, Nesta Oji, followed a similar path.
“I started spending more time in the circle area just so I could be with my sister,” Nesta Oji added. She inked a letter of intent to pursue a collegiate track and field career at Brown.
Sports weren’t the only activity linking the Oji siblings together. Oji’s parents made a concerted effort to raise their children in the church, “placing strong emphasis on instilling God’s love and guiding principles” in their daily lives.
Despite being raised a Christian, Jessica Oji believed she “didn’t have a proper relationship with God” until her freshman year of high school.
“That’s when I became a little sentient,” Oji said. “I was just kind of living, doing anything before high school, and I feel like sports also facilitated that.”
Instead of investing her time in sports, Oji built her relationship with God by giving back. She started going to church early on Sundays to help out with Sunday School programming. She began donating her time to a homeless shelter sponsored by the Salvation Army, serving meals and providing a sense of comfort to those who needed it most. The youth group she once attended out of obligation became something she looked forward to every Friday afternoon.
But getting back in time for the indoor season was still a priority for the athlete, and with a renewed anchor in her faith, Oji found the motivation to get back into the sport. Most athletes are out of commission for at least nine months following ACL reconstruction surgery. Oji was back to competing by January 2024, maintaining her momentum like nothing happened.
“She would often say, ‘I know I’m coming back in less than a year, and I will compete at my level or even better,’” Constance Oji, Jessica’s mother, wrote to The Daily Pennsylvanian. “I must admit, it was difficult to … fully grasp how that could be possible. Nonetheless, she proved everyone wrong.”
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Now a freshman on Penn’s throws squad, Oji toed the line at her first collegiate competition: the 2025 Penn Opener. The Jay Alix Throws Area was electric for the 18-year-old, who was ecstatic to return to competition after an undefeated outdoor season in her senior year of high school.
Oji’s first throw grazed the standing program record, missing the mark by half a foot. Her next lob crossed 17 meters for the first time in program history and the second time in her career. Despite feeling “a little scared” for her “first couple [of] throws,” Oji catapulted the shot 17.72 meters on her final throw — a meter and a half over the established program record and half a meter over the Ivy League record.
“My teammates were telling me, ‘Calm down, slow down … Put everything on the last throw,’” Oji said in a December 2025 interview with the DP.
“The girl has an absolute gift,” volunteer throws coach Montel Johnson said. “She’s a generational talent. Seeing her break the Ivy record wasn’t that much of a surprise. That was just another throw.”
The new year came and went. Blizzards rattled the Eastern seaboard. Fraternities on Locust Walk took down their festive lights to ring in the spring semester. The cold set in as classes were set to begin, but the competition was only getting hotter as Oji’s NCAA-leading mark was reset by Nebraska’s Axelina Johansson.
Oji entered the second meet of her collegiate career the same but different. The air was charged but calm as a small crowd pooled around the chain-linked fence separating the throwing cage from an onslaught of spectators.
Over her six throws, Oji made breaking records a habit. 18.11 meters — a new Ivy League record — on the first lob. She bettered the mark once more, breaking 60 feet for the first time in her career, with an 18.36-meter shot on the second throw.
A strong thrust propelled the penultimate shot to the edge of the throws area, 18.45 meters away from the circle — the best of the bunch and the second-farthest throw in the NCAA at the time. Action on the oval became background noise as eyewitnesses erupted in a thunderous applause.
When asked about her goals for the late season that afternoon in January 2026, Oji said, “I don’t like to limit myself to a number … [I] just [want] to throw as far as I possibly can going into conference [championships] and nationals.”
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Fast forward to February, one day before Oji was set to compete at her first Ivy League Heptagonal Indoor Track & Field Championships. She was seeded to win the event by two-and-a-half meters. Who was seeded right behind her? Senior thrower Angeludi Asaah.
Asaah walked on to the track and field team her freshman year. There was only one senior thrower at the time — 2023 College graduate Olatide Abinusawa.
“I didn’t have a female senior to turn to when I was a freshman,” Asaah wrote to the DP.
“While I will always appreciate my relationship with Ola Abinusawa, my relationship with Joji is a bit different," she wrote, referring to Oji by a nickname, "It is now one I couldn’t imagine my days, practices and competitions without.”
Track and field may have one of the largest rosters of any sport at Penn, but the throwing squad somehow manages to cultivate a close-knit community amidst the chaos.
“The biggest thing for me was the team and how close it was,” Oji said of ultimately committing to Penn over UCLA.
On the first day of Heps, Asaah and Oji sat together on the limited bleacher space outside the throws cage as their teammates competed in the weight throw. On the other side of the country, Nebraska senior Miné de Klerk reset the African shot put record, which had stood for over two decades. In less than 24 hours, de Klerk’s mark would be erased.
When Oji toed the line at the Armory, it felt like the throwing cage went silent with anticipation. Even though a cacophony of distance runners cheered at the top of their lungs over the finish line, the air was frighteningly still.
Oji shot through the tension, resetting the recently-established African record with an 18.50-meter toss on her first attempt of the afternoon. The Ivy League title wasn’t a question.
“I honestly didn’t even know it was the African record until after the meet,” Oji said. “I thought the African record was really way ahead of me.”
Oji beamed as she posed for photos next to her “twin flame” Asaah on the makeshift podium. Asaah ultimately earned the silver behind Oji, putting the shot over 16 meters for the first time in her indoor career.
“After hitting my 16.14-meter indoor PR, I wanted to cry because that was the best way I could’ve ended my indoor career at Penn,” Asaah wrote to the DP. Standing by Oji's side “just made the moment even more sweet” for her.
Oji stood next to another teammate — senior sprinter Moforehan Abinusawa — to accept the Ivy League’s Most Outstanding Performer honors. A Nigerian herself, Abinusawa represented her country at the 2024 African Games, ultimately clinching a gold medal in the 4x100-meter relay.
“[Abinusawa] was one of the people that helped me get in contact with people who are super high up in Nigeria’s Track and Field Association,” Oji said. “I know with the Nigerian Federation, it can take a little bit longer for certain things. It genuinely took a month … It was not very long in terms of what other people go through.”
Despite spending most of her life in New Jersey, Oji was born on Nigerian soil. Growing up, Oji spent her summers and winters in the savannas and wetlands of the Niger River delta.
“Those trips weren’t just vacations; they were opportunities for her to experience the culture firsthand, to understand where she comes from, and to build real relationships with her many cousins, aunties, uncles, and extended family members,” Oji’s mother wrote. “Those experiences helped shape her identity in a deep and meaningful way.”
After Oji won her first indoor national title at Nike Indoor Nationals in 2025, she was asked if she would ever consider competing professionally for Nigeria. Her answer? “Definitely.”
“This isn’t about shifting allegiance as has been vastly reported,” Oji’s mother wrote. “Rather, it’s about embracing who she has always been. She is not yet naturalized in the United States, and any indication otherwise, such as the initial record listing her country as USA, was simply an assumption made by World Athletics.”
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In March 2026, with two more national records to her name, Oji entered her first national collegiate competition: the NCAAs in Fayetteville, Ark.
Oji’s name began floating around the corners of the track world after her performance at Heps. FloTrack even dubbed her the “dark horse of the NCAA women’s shot put.” While the world was hyping her up to pull off the upset against Johansson, Oji was trying to escape the recesses of her mind.
She took a breath as she entered the preliminary rounds of competition. In for four. Out for four. Oji steadied herself for the final throw of the preliminary round — the deciding factor in whether or not she would become a first-team All-American.
One launch. One shot to put. One chance to make the finals.
Push and release.
The only underclassman in the field is a first-team All American.
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Oji felt the sand under her feet in the throwing pit at Georgia’s new field complex. Nearly a month had passed since she finished seventh at NCAAs – a finish most would be proud of, but Oji still isn’t satisfied.
Cherry blossoms had begun to bloom outside her dorm, but Oji’s heart was at the grassy knoll cradled by the side of a highway, train tracks, and Rhodes Field. A new season brings new records to break and new expectations to shatter. Lining up against three-time Olympian Danniel Thomas-Dodd at the inaugural Spec Towns Invitational was a new hurdle for the freshman to overcome.
Once again, the program record fell with Oji’s first lob – a 17.45-meter throw. She took down the Ivy outdoor shot put record on her final throw during the preliminary rounds, ultimately fouling during the finals.
“It was inevitable,” Asaah wrote. “I am so grateful that I had the opportunity to set the record once and I am so excited to keep watching her re-set that record over the next four years.”
The torch has been passed, but the flame still burns bright. With the outdoor shot put program and conference record to her name, Oji’s next conquest is a collegiate Penn Relay Carnival title. Last year, Oji became the fifth girl in history to win multiple Penn Relays titles in the high school girls’ shot put.
But she’s not content with just one title. Looking forward, Oji wants to become the ninth person to go 4-for-4 in an individual event at Penn Relays — in her case, the college women’s shot put Championship of America.
“This girl is on a mission,” assistant coach Isaiah Simmons said. “She says she wants to be the first young lady to throw 21 meters in a long time, which I want to say is about 70 feet for American conversions … her motivation is whatever she wants it to be.”
