MSL Track and Field: Fosbury Flop Hasn't Turned to State Gold for League
The word flop typically leaves a negative impression in sports.
A team flopped because it didn’t meet expectations. An athlete flops because they are acting/faking like they were fouled or knocked over. Basketball now has “no flop” rules to prevent the practice.
Then there is the Fosbury Flop, which was the name for the technique used by Dick Fosbury to revolutionize the high jump in track and field. Fosbury, who passed away Sunday at 76 from lymphoma, went back first over the bar in the high jump to win the 1968 Olympic gold medal in Mexico City with Olympic and US records of 7.4 feet. He also won the NCAA indoor and outdoor championships for Oregon State University.
As a side note, I’m still a feet and inches guy when it comes to field event measurements, so Fosbury’s 7.4 feet is converted from 2.24 meters.
The news of Fosbury’s passing led to a leap into the history of the Mid-Suburban League boys and girls in the high jump. It’s fair to say it hasn’t been a flop with numerous state medalists, but it is also one of only three track and field events where the league hasn’t produced a state champion. The others are the long jump and the 400-meter relay.
Palmer’s Gold Standard
William Palmer was no flop when it came to the high jump. The 1957 graduate and three-sport athlete at long-shuttered Arlington won two titles and just missed a third under the guidance of Bill Beckman before the Fosbury Flop became the standard high jump technique and prior to the MSL’s beginning in 1963.
Palmer cleared 5-10 one time as a freshman and was still competing in some meets at the frosh-soph level the next year when he tied for first in the District meet at 5-11½ to advance to the state meet in Champaign. He cleared 6-2 to tie for the state title with Wilbur Dickson of Danville and Don Swanson of Moline.
Legendary area coach and administrator G.A. McElroy wrote in his Paddock Publications “Mac Says” column: “He has the promise of becoming one of the finest high jumpers in Illinois history if he does not let sophomore success go to his head and take the attitude he has nothing more to win.”
That was clearly not the case as he took 22nd in the state cross country meet in the fall and lettered in basketball in the winter. But Palmer missed a lot of time in the spring because of illness, and after tying for first in the District meet at 6-2, he was one of five competitors to clear that height at state and finish second behind Dickson’s 6-3¼.
Palmer would face more adversity as a senior when he pulled an ankle tendon in mid-September of the cross country season but he came back to earn honorable mention all-West Suburban Conference in basketball. Clearing 6-4¾ in the district meet was a sign of things to come in Champaign when his 6-5¼ broke the state meet record of 6-5⅛ by Centralia’s Lowell Spurgeon in 1933.
Palmer, who went on to letter at Northwestern, held the state meet record until 1967 when Evanston’s Ben Gaines cleared 6-9¼. Evanston’s Nat Page became the first high jumper to clear 7 feet when he did so exactly in 1975.
Hello, Newman
Three-time state medalist Matt Newman of Buffalo Grove made a significant jump as a senior after a pair of third-place finishes at 6-7 in 2007 and 2008. He set a Palatine Relays record in 2009 by clearing 6-10 and just missed 6-11.
“After I cleared 6-9, I was so pumped up,” Newman told the Daily Herald’s Jeff Newton. “Since last year getting over 6-9 has been such a big goal of mine.”
At state in the Class 3A meet he cleared 6-10 again. Unfortunately for Newman, a height that would have been good enough to win the previous two years wasn’t enough this time as Jamario Taylor of East Aurora won at 7-0. Newman went on to letter at Iowa.
Pezdirtz Goes 4-for-4
Basketball was the ticket to college for Fremd’s Cathy Pezdirtz. She went to DePaul and is still the career leader in blocked shots with 255 and one of its career-leading rebounders.
But there was plenty of success in the spring for the versatile Pezdirtz as she is the only MSL athlete to earn a state high jump medal all four years. She finished seventh (1986), tied for fifth (1987), eighth (1988) and third (1989).
Pezdirtz won the Palatine Relays’ G.A. McElroy Award as the outstanding female athlete as a junior and senior. In her final Relays, she won the high jump at 5-5, the shot put and discus.
“I feel like I’m walking on air,” Pezdirtz told the Daily Herald’s Reggie Gorski. “It’s been my goal all season to finally win all three events in a big meet.”
Gorski, the paper’s longtime girls track and cross country writer, said Pezdirtz might have been the only athlete at the time to qualify for state in the high jump, shot put and discus. She cleared 5-4 to finish third and had school-records in the discus of 121-7 in the prelims and 122-8 in the finals to finish eighth.
“This is my best state meet ever,” Pezdirtz said.
Prospect’s Michael Shafis is the only other MSL high jumper to medal three times by finishing fifth in 3A in 2016-17 and eighth in 2018.
Trio Helps the Cougars Roar
Ken Leonard and Ben Bowers were separated by more than two decades but connected through the high jump. Leonard cleared 6-9 as a junior in 1988 to finish fourth as Jason James of Mt. Vernon and Darrin Plab of Mascoutah both cleared 7-0.
“It was the highest I’ve gone all year and it just felt great,” Leonard told the Daily Herald. “The weather was the way I like it and my step was on. It was just my time to peak.”
Leonard, who was also a standout hurdler, helped lead Conant and legendary coach Ron Gummerson to its first MSL boys track title in 1989. He cleared 6-8 at state to finish third but missed three attempts at 6-9, which was the winning height for Homewood-Flossmoor’s Mike Williams as Plab took second.
“I’m happy I got a different color medal but I am disappointed that I couldn’t go higher,” said Leonard, who competed at Illinois State.
Bowers was also a combination hurdler-high jumper for Conant who took seventh in Class 3A at 6-3 as a junior in 2011. He also finished sixth in the 110 high hurdles and ninth in the 300 intermediates.
Bowers, who came to the US from Thailand in 2000 and went to the University of Pennsylvania, cleared a school-record 6-10 in the 2012 finals to finish third behind Oak Park-River Forest’s Carl Heinz (7-1) and Marmion’s Peter Stefanski (6-10).
“I took what energy I had left and really focused it on the high jump,” Bowers said to Newton. “After my warmup jumps and even (Friday’s prelims), I felt real strong to the bar and I knew I had big jumps in me today.”
Conant’s Laura Motyka is the only MSL girls high jumper to finish second with a 5-5 in AA in 2000. Christina Archibald of Belleville West won the meet at 5-9.
“I really wanted to jump 5-8 down here but things started unraveling once I got to 5-4,” Motyka told Gorski. “I’ve been having trouble on the curve all season. But it’s still a great way to finish.”
Motkya, who went to Loyola, won the Top Times Indoor state meet as a junior and took second as a senior.
Rainey Finally Has Her Day
The IHSA girls state track and field meet was still in relative infancy and was split into classes for the first time when Sandy Rainey was a Wheeling senior in 1978.
Forest View’s Vanessa Calabrese took fourth in the high jump at 5 feet and won the discus in the first girls state meet in 1973 and Hoffman Estates’ Char Warring took fifth in the high jump in 1977. Rainey was a four-time qualifier who joined them as a medalist when she took third in Class AA with a jump of 5-6.
“That was my best ever and I finally made the finals,” Rainey told the Herald’s Jeff Nordlund. “Every year I would miss the finals by 1 inch. If the mark would go up 2 inches one year, I would improve just 1 inch.”
An even bigger leap was just ahead for Rainey. The four-time all-MSL basketball player and Wheeling MVP was set to play in college at Lewis but decided to leave and take a shot at making the Chicago Hustle in the new Women’s Professional Basketball League (WBL). She played for the Hustle for two years before she was forced to retire because of injuries.
She was also the first female in the country to try out for and make her boys basketball team at the junior high level. Rainey was a three-time all-MSL volleyball player and was inducted into Wheeling’s Wildcats Athletic Hall of Fame in 2010.
Lee Makes a Big Impression
Rolling Meadows’ Jason Lee admitted his main reason for going out for track and field was to impress head football coach Fred Lussow. Lee, who also played basketball, was so discouraged by how it went his freshman year he nearly switched to tennis instead.
But Lee stuck with it and impressed Lussow, not only as an all-MSL football player, but by jumping 6-10 to finish third in Class AA in 1991 and break the school record by an inch. Lussow was also a long-time track coach who gave Lee some helpful advice after the Friday prelims.
“I came out hoping for a 6-8 and anything above that would be gravy,” Lee told the Daily Herald’s Mike Spellman. “(Lussow) told me I was too tight so I told myself to relax and have fun.”
The camaraderie of track and field was also evident as Cameron Wright of Marion won the high jump at 7-1.
“Everyone from the MSL was cheering and it was a great feeling having them behind me,” Lee said.
Meadows’ John Cole took seventh in 1987 and had the unique distinction of claiming high jump medals for two MSL schools. Cole tied for fifth for Forest View just a few weeks before the school closed for good in 1986.