After flying all day from Louisiana, the first thing Hollis Conway did upon arriving in Utah, before checking into his hotel room, before getting batteries for his cassette player, before getting something to eat, was drive directly to the high jump pit at Brigham Young University. He wanted to see if everything he'd
heard was true. If it was the Shangri La of high jump pits. If he'd died and gone to Utah.Conway is a high jumper. He doesn't exactly look like a high jumper. He's only 6 feet tall and weighs around 150 pounds, whereas your average high jumper is around 6-5 and 175. But five or six years ago, when he was figuring out the event in high school, he started jumping over his head, and he's yet to stop. He went 6-4 as a high school sophomore, 6-10 as a junior and 7-2 as a senior.
Then he went to college at nearby Southwestern Louisiana and he jumped 7-5 as a freshman and 7-8 as a sophomore. He took a leave of absence last fall and went to Korea, where you may remember (as do a whole lot of stunned Eastern European jumpers) that he jumped 7-8 3/4 to win the Olympic silver medal. Then he came back to the states and won the NCAA Indoor title this spring, as a college junior, at 7-91/4.
He's already inched his way to the American record, and he's obviously closing in on the eight-foot barrier, which, if you're a high jumper these days, is what all the talk is about. Eight feet this. Eight feet that. Who will be the first human in the history of the world to jump eight feet? Who will break the barrier? And when will it happen?
A lot of people think it could be any day now. In the last year, no less than three jumpers around the world - Javier Sotomayor from Cuba, Carlo Thranhardt from West Germany and Patrik Sjoberg from Sweden - have gone higher than 7-11; and a fourth, Gennadly Avdeyenko of the Soviet Union, the gold medalist in Seoul, has jumped 7-93/4. It was Avdeyenko who tried at eight feet after securing the Olympic gold, and, as the Olympic Stadium crowd held its breath, barely failed.
Conway is the Great American Hope in the race for eight. If an American's going to do it, it will probably be this Rajin' Cajun.
And if there's an American high jump pit that's going to let Conway jump eight feet, it could very probably be BYU's - which is what prompted Conway to waste no time in checking out the pit first thing this week upon arriving in Provo for the NCAA Track & Field Championships. Men's high jump qualifying is scheduled for Thursday night, and the finals are Saturday night, starting at 6:45.
When he first laid eyes on the BYU pit, Conway was impressed. Very impressed.
"I'd heard it was humongous," he said. "I'd heard all the stories, about how the last time they held the NCAAs here (1982) there were guys whose P.R.s were 7-3 who were going 7-7. I'd heard that the altitude is a big help."
He paced off the runway approach, to make sure there was as much room as it appeared.
"It is humongous," he said. "And I like all that blue."
As in the wild yonder.
The altitude at the BYU high jump pit is 4,627 feet, meaning that Conway, in order to become a high jumping pioneer, will need to jump 4,635 feet above sea level.
"It (eight feet) is always on my mind," he admitted. "It isn't a barrier anymore. It's a race. I would really like to go for eight here."
Then he quickly qualified that remark.
"If I win."
For all his soaring, Conway is yet to win an NCAA outdoor championship. As a freshman he finished sixth, and as a sophomore he was second. Knowing full well that his Olympic medal won't buy him anything this week in Provo, he has prioritized his goals.
"First goal, make it to the finals," he said. "Second goal, win the meet. Third goal, get the American record (above 7-91/4).
"Fourth goal, the ultimate goal."
He's only 22-years-old, and still well off the prime-time age of his world-class peers. He's still got another year of school left. If you're at all worried about encores, it might actually be a little early in life to earmark an ultimate goal.
"But you know what?" he said, smiling as he breathed in the thin air of Utah, "If I get it here, I'll take it."