US 7 footers HJ Trivia

[dukehjsteve]

First high schooler might have been Bill McClellon.

I had always thought he jumped 7 at 168 St. but I never found any record of it. I thought it was at one of the all-comers meets on Thursday night.

I just checked this one out:

Bill McClellon was indeed the # 1 HS'er over 7 feet, and he did it in the biggest arena of all, the AAU champs in San Diego in 1965. He finished 3rd in 7'0". Otis Burrell was 1st at the same height, and Ed Caruthers was 2nd at 7'0" too. All 3 made it on the first try, but Burrell was clean all the way up, Caruthers had 1 miss at 6'10", and McClellon had missed twice at both 6'10" and at 6'11" . All 3 missed thrice at 7'1" .

McClellon was only a junior. The next year as a senior he jumped a whopping 6'7.5". He jumped 6'10" at Southern in 1968.

[EastBayprepoftheweek67]

Here's the situation:

TF&N was keeping track of who was what over 7 ft in 1963.

Hoyt got his picture and a mention in the Mar. '63 issue of TF&N for being # 7 USA over 7 ft in Feb. '63.

Stuber got a mention in the Jul. '63 TF&N "US Report" for being # 10 USA over 7 ft in June.

In its May '63 issue, TF&N had headlined an article, "Two Jayseers Jump Seven." The article by Fred Baer noted merely that, "John Rambo of Long Beach City College and Otis Burrell of Los Angeles Valley both high jumped an e ven[sic] seven feet as Southern Californians let loose with a host of good marks in the Southern California JC championships at Mt. San Antonio College on May 18."

So the question now is: Which one, Rambo or Burrell, was # 8 and which one was # 9?

(I don't know the answer, and unless TF&N mentioned the positioning in later bio details on the two, or someone here was at the meet and recalls, or someone can ask Rambo and / or Burrell …)

[dukehjsteve]

It was a LONG time ago, but it seems that there was a quantum increase in the # of HJ'ers getting up to the 7'0"-7'2" level in the 1961-1964 period, all this well before the Flop caused an even bigger qwuantum improvement.

The simple reason for the early 6o's improvement was:

All-Weather/Rubberized( anything but cinders) Takeoffs ! They did not exist before about 1962, and then were almost universla within 5 years. Anyone disagree ?

Similar improvements of even greater magnitude occurred in the lj and 3j, particularly the latter, and when tartan realy took over, that's when the 3j took off ! All today's 57-59+ 3j'ers would be jumping 55-56 on cinders.