I watched the high jump the other night on the Olympic TV coverage. I was amazed at how high the contestants could jump. They also all jumped using the same technique. When I was a boy, no one jumped that way. Let me explain.
In high school, Dick Fosbury was tall, skinny, and not a very good athlete. He liked sports, though, and he tried several before settling on the high jump in track and field.
He attempted many well-known methods as a high jumper, including the western roll, the straddle, and the scissors. At last, he did something weird; he approached the bar with great speed and jumped—head facing up and back facing down—with his head leading the way over the bar. Several officials initially protested, but since Fosbury jumped off one foot, the jump was ruled legal.
Great success did not arrive quickly. Fosbury spent years working on his technique. No one—NO ONE—felt inspired to imitate it. Many ridiculed him for it.
Finally, during college, he became one of the top fifty high jumpers in the world. In 1968, he made the U.S. Olympic team. Incredibly, in the Olympic games in Mexico City later that year, Fosbury won the high jump, setting an Olympic record of seven feet four inches.
Little by little, the style caught on. In 1972, Juri Tarmak won the Olympic gold medal for deploying the straddle technique. Since then, every winning jumper has used the Fosbury Flop. For years, it has been the standard in high jumping.
Last year Dick died of lymphoma. Today, you can look at his entry in Wikipedia and find this for the first sentence, “Richard Douglas Fosbury…was an American high jumper, who is considered one of the most influential athletes in the history of track and field.”
Not bad.
Sometimes, a leader is so far ahead of the pack that people cannot comprehend where he is going. If that is the case, the leader must build bridges with people, persevere, and lead on.
Mark
Author of Holy Chaos How To Walk with God in a Frenzied World