One day Allison Stokke was a just a pretty high school athlete and the next she was an international Internet destination, although not by her own choice. Miss Stokke's photograph was taken during a high school track meet, where she was preparing to compete in the pole vault, and someone posted it to a web site. It didn't take long for other less reputable sites to pick up the image and set off a round of Stokke-mania on the worldwide web.
Miss Stokke isn't just a pretty girl; she's a pretty girl who happens to be a tremendous athlete. She was the California pole vaulting champion and is on scholarship at the University of California. She wanted to be known for her athletic accomplishments rather than purely for her looks. In terms of athletics, she wanted to be seen as Maria Sharapova, an attractive tennis player who wins, instead of Anna Kournikova, an attractive tennis player who just shows up and looks pretty. Miss Stokke could eventually become another Natalie Gulbis, a gorgeous LPGA golfer who has been quite successful.
The problem began to surface in 2004 when she began to receive messages from her friends that her photo had been seen on the Internet. She had 1,000 new messages on her social network site and a YouTube video of her being interviewed had been viewed 15,000 times. She began to receive interview requests from around the country, including one from Brazil. She went to her coach for help and to her parents (her father is an attorney) for guidance. They soon realized there was little they could do to stem the flow of messages and photos, other than to focus on trying to stop the ones that were particularly tasteless. They were successful in getting a fake profile of Allison removed from Facebook and another taken off MySpace, which included a slideshow with a dozen photos and a chat forum. She told the Washington Post, "Even if none of it is illegal, it just all feels really demeaning."
There's no question that Miss Stokke is an amazing athlete. Born in Newport Beach, California, she made the U.S. team that competed in the 2005 World Youth Championships, but couldn't compete because of a broken leg. As a senior at Newport Harbor High School she jumped 13 feet, 7 inches, which ranked second in the nation. She held seven national records.
As a freshman at Cal, Miss Stokke set a school freshman record by vaulting 13-5¾ at the Pac-10 Championships. She also qualified for the NCAA Indoor Championships and was ranked No. 20 in the country. In the outdoor season she jumped 13-9¾, the second-best performance in school history.
But because of her notoriety, Miss Stokke hasn't been able to enjoy her success. She rarely leaves her home and has grown weary of the attention she's garnered. In fact, the online media information on the Cal website does not include her mug shot, while all other student-athletes have their images on their biography pages.