Probing the Artifacts
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The Unlikely Ascent of the First High School 7-Foot High Jumper
By Marc Bloom for DyeStat
[Part One of Two]
On December 14, 1963, the 9th Bishop Loughlin Games were held at the New York Armory in Washington Heights, with their usual slate of varsity and novice events that took a full day and part of the night to complete. It was the traditional opener to the area’s high school indoor track season and there was much excitement in the region to get back onto the wooden 220-yard oval, host of many of the nation’s best athletes each winter.
While the running events always took center stage, this day was different.
The varsity high jump would create track and field history. But that was only because it was linked to the novice high jump, which would also create history — a grander history seemingly left untouched for generations like a fossil remaining to be dug up, dusted off and scrutinized.
The two high jumps were bonded in memory, a window into formative and daring achievements in an era when sprinters sprayed a sticky substance like hair spray onto their flats for a bit of traction on the slippery Armory surface, laid down packing tape for starting blocks, and waited for the crack of the starter’s pistol while inhaling the pungent aroma of grilling hot dogs at the food concession only a few feet away.
There was no precedent for what happened jointly in the two high jumps that day, and there has likely been no repeat of it since. The two jumps, like mirror images, are welded in the pantheon of Armory legend.
While the Armory itself has been remade into the modern architectural marvel we know today, these jumps floated in the untapped haze of distant memory, ripe for excavation if only the protagonists could be found almost six decades hence and asked how it was on that day, during those moments, when they were still learning the tools of their trade, that they managed to leap so high.
I competed myself at the ’63 Loughlin Games, starting my senior year of track on a second-string mile relay. At the time, I was also several months into the start of my journalism career, sending results and stories to Track & Field News, receiving an official T&FN press I.D. from the managing editor, and following the top athletes like a hawk.
The track arena was then called 102nd Engineers Armory. The facility was constructed in 1909 to house the New York State Military’s 22nd Regiment. Later, the regiment became the 102nd…
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