7-0 : When Charlie Dumas Jumped, the Barrier Fell

Thirty years ago today, a 19-year-old Compton Junior College freshman named Charlie Dumas, with slow, confident strides, approached a high jump bar during the 1956 Olympic trials at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

He was attempting to jump into the unknown. As a sports barrier, 7 feet in the high jump had only a few seconds left.

Dumas’ body, seemingly yanked upward by a mighty kick of his lead right leg, rose to the facing edge, then to the top of the bar. For an instant, his body was straight along the bar. He rolled over it and began to descend into the sawdust pit. When he landed, about 20,000 spectators began leaping to their feet, cheering. They had seen history.

But wait. The bar trembled.

When Dumas landed on his back in the pit, he looked up and watched the quivering bar. It was as if fate hadn’t yet decided whether the young man in the pit was worthy enough for track and field’s history books.

The bar stopped, and stayed. A human being had jumped 7 feet. A barrier was gone.

Thirty years. Seven feet. The height has long since lost its magic in an event that changed forever in the mid-1960s, when an Oregon State jumper named Dick Fosbury taught himself, and then the world, that you should go over the high jump bar on your back, not your stomach. Also, head first, not feet first.

Thirty years. Seven feet. Even track nuts have stopped counting the number of those who have cleared seven. But figure something like 5,000. In 1985 alone, 29 high school jumpers cleared it. In all, 35 high schoolers have jumped 7-2 or higher.

The women’s record is up to 6-9 3/4. The men’s world record is 7-10 3/4 and many expect 8 feet will be reached in the 1980s. Dumas himself is surprised that 8 feet hasn’t yet been surpassed.

Thirty years. Seven feet. Dumas, who later jumped for USC, is barely among the Trojans’ top 10 high jumpers. He’s tied for eighth. To find his name on a record board today, you have to go to Centennial High School or Compton College.

So folks yawn at 7 feet today. But in the mid-1950s, 7 feet in the high jump represented supreme excellence, an ultimate challenge to athletic skill and training. It was a psychological barrier that had stopped the assaults of such world-class jumpers as Les Steers, Walter Davis, Ernie Shelton and others for 15 years.

As a barrier, 7 feet had the same ring to it as the 4-minute mile, the 60-foot shotput, the 27-foot long jump, the 16-foot pole vault, or the 200-foot discus. But all of those barriers fell between 1954 and 1962.

Since 1941, jumpers like Steers, of Oregon, and Davis, of Texas A&M;, had taken the high jump record to the brink of 7. In the mid-1950s, USC’s Shelton cleared 6-10 24 times and was considered the most consistent jumper in the world. Shelton, many said, was the man.

But at 7 feet, all faltered.

All but Dumas.

Saturday, June 29, 1956. Marilyn Monroe married Arthur Miller. Speculation had it that President Eisenhower would run for a second term. New ocean-view homes in Palos Verdes were selling for $26,525. Grauman’s Chinese was showing “The King and I.” And 24-year-old Mickey Mantle was hitting .379 and leading the major leagues with 27 home runs.

Charlie Dumas spent all day relaxing at the home of Compton teammate Willie Atterberry, who would attempt but fail to make the Olympic team in the 400 on Sunday.

Both arrived at the Coliseum participants’ gate shortly before 6 p.m., where they were to meet Compton Coach Herschel Smith, who had Dumas’ participant’s pass.

“Someone wrote at the time that I forgot my pass and had to jump the fence that night, but it’s not true,” Dumas said recently. “Herschel Smith had my pass, but he didn’t show up when he was supposed to. I had to pay $3 to get in the Coliseum, then talk my way past the guard at the dressing room.”

The breakaway height in the competition was 6-9 1/2. Dumas, Vern Wilson of the Santa Clara Valley Youth Village and Villanova’s Phil Reavis all cleared the height and made the Olympic team. In an upset, Shelton didn’t.

Said Dumas: “I asked the high-jump official, Dave Schwartz, to raise it to 7 feet, but Wilson came over and said: ‘Charlie, if you clear an even 7, a dozen guys will do it next week, once the mental barrier is gone. Put it a half-inch over.’

“So it was actually put at 7 feet 5/8 of an inch. When they converted it to meters, it came out 7 feet, a half inch.

“My first try was a miss, but it was a decent miss. I felt fairly confident. There was no pressure. I knew I had made the plane (to the Olympics). Plus, I’d had attempts in competition at 7 before, so I knew what it was about. Maybe I was so relaxed, I just did everything right.”

Dumas put his sweats back on and jogged the length of the Coliseum turf and back. He sat down, pulled the sweats off and relaced his green shoes. He faced the bar again.

“I ticked it somewhere, my foot, hand . . . but it stayed up. The place went wild. It was a super night.”

For Schwartz, who was running the event, the place went a little too wild.

“With Dumas and Shelton in those days, we knew we might have a world-record jump to handle,” he said.

“We’d measured the height before Dumas’ jump, which was required for record consideration. But after he cleared it, all kinds of photographers, sportswriters and friends of Dumas’ came out of nowhere. I was afraid someone would bump a standard and knock the bar off. That would have negated the first 7-foot jump. So the other two judges and I kept everyone away so we could re-measure.”

Dumas had to share the headlines the next morning because another barrier fell that night in the Coliseum. Glenn Davis of Ohio State became the first man to break 50 seconds in the 400-meter hurdles when he ran 49.5. The next morning’s banner headline in The Times sports section read:

DUMAS CLEARS 7 FT.,

DAVIS RACES 49.5

As it was, Bakersfield, and not Los Angeles, nearly had the first 7-foot jump.

“I had two extremely close misses at 7 the weekend before, at the AAU meet in Bakersfield,” Dumas said. “I knew then I was jumping well enough to get it in L.A.”

The next November, in Melbourne, Dumas jumped 6-11 1/2 for an Olympic record and a gold medal. He made the 1960 Olympic team, too, but was hampered by a lingering knee injury and did not win a medal.

He made a comeback in 1964, after a three-year layoff, cleared 7 feet for the first time in four years, then reinjured the knee.

For his career, he cleared 7 feet 10 times.

He coached track and counseled students at Jefferson High for 17 years before becoming the dean of students at Reseda High School in 1984.

He was born in the right era. He would have flopped as a flopper, he said.

“The Fosbury Flop came along a few years after I got out of it,” he said. “I couldn’t have mastered it. I just didn’t have that kind of range of motion.

“On the other hand, the floppers today could never have jumped 7-8 and 7-9 and landed on sand or sawdust pits, like we did. The Port-a-Pit has made that style possible. If they landed on sand that way, they could break their necks.

“To tell you the truth, I’m surprised the floppers don’t have the record over 8 feet yet. When they got it up to 7-6 and 7-7 in the early 1970s, I thought 8 was only about two years away.”

Dumas was a pioneer in the use of stretching as a training exercise.

“I hardly ever jumped in practice,” he said. “When I did, it was for form only. I constantly did stretching drills, so I could have the greatest range of motion possible.”

Dumas’ USC coach, Jess Mortensen, once described him this way: “Charlie’s body is as loose as a sack of ashes.”

Charlie Dumas will turn 50 this year. He looks as lean and fit as he did that night in the Coliseum, 30 years ago. He has added only a few wrinkles and gray hairs. Whenever he had a physical at USC, he weighed 179. When he was interviewed recently, he said he weighed 178.

Straight-faced, he said: “I ballooned up to 186 about five years ago, but I cut back on the fats and got back down to 178-179.”

Souvenirs? The green shoes he wore that night he gave to his younger brother, who, Dumas says, wore them out in a few months and discarded them. He was given a section of the crossbar that night, and later donated it to Compton College, where it is on display in the school’s trophy case.

The shoes he wore the night he cleared 6-10 as a Centennial High senior were bronzed, one going to the school, the other to his mother.

The Olympic gold medal?

“I think it’s in the glove compartment of my pickup truck,” he said.

Dumas is an avid fisherman, stalking channel catfish and largemouth bass. He spends school year weekends and summer days fishing at Lake Cachuma, Vail Lake and the Salton Sea.

He also spends time taking loving care of a 1965 Porsche, of which he is the original owner. He attributes his lean, fit physique to vigorous yard work and working on automobile engines.

“I’ve thought about competing in those masters meets, but I know I’d push it too hard and pull a muscle,” he said. “If I got in shape, I think I could jump 6-6.”

He loves talking about the night he became the first man to jump 7 feet, though. He was describing it recently when he suddenly interrupted himself to say: “You know, a lot of guys who’re jumping 7 feet easily today never even heard of me. But I was the first, and they’ll never take that night away from me.”

WORLD RECORD PROGRESSION IN HIGH JUMP

Mark Name Country Year 6-6 George Horine United States 1912 6-6 3/4 George Horine United States 1912 6-7 Edward Beeson United States 1914 6-8 Clint Larson United States 1917 6-8 Harold Osborn United States 1924 6-8 Walter Marty United States 1933 6-9 1/2* Walter Marty United States 1934 6-9 Walter Marty United States 1934 6-9 Cornelius Johnson United States 1936 6-9 Dave Albritton United States 1936 6-9 3/4 Mel Walker United States 1937 6-10 Mel Walker United States 1937 6-10 Bill Stewart United States 1941 6-10 3/4 Les Steers United States 1941 6-11 Les Steers United States 1941 6-11 1/2 Walter Davis United States 1953 7-0 1/2 Charlie Dumas United States 1956 7-1 Yuriy Styepanov USSR 1957 7-1 1/2 John Thomas United States 1960 7-1 3/4 John Thomas United States 1960 7-3 3/4 John Thomas United States 1960 7-3 3/4 Valeriy Brumel USSR 1961 7-4 Valeriy Brumel USSR 1961 7-4 1/2 Valeriy Brumel USSR 1961 7-5 Valeriy Brumel USSR 1962 7-5 Valeriy Brumel USSR 1962 7-5 3/4 Valeriy Brumel USSR 1963 7-6* Ni Chih-Chin China 1970 7-6 Pat Matzdorf United States 1971 7-6 Dwight Stones United States 1973 7-7 Dwight Stones United States 1976 7-7 Dwight Stones United States 1976 7-7 3/4 Vladimir Yashchenko USSR 1977 7-8 Vladimir Yashchenko USSR 1978 7-8 1/2 Jacek Wszola Poland 1980 7-8 1/2 Dietmar Mogenburg West Germany 1980 7-8 3/4 Gerd Wessig East Germany 1980 7-9 Zhu Jianhua China 1983 7-9 3/4 Zhu Jianhua China 1983 7-10 Zhu Jianhua China 1984 7-10 1/2 Rudolf Povarnitsin USSR 1985 7-10 3/4 Igor Paklin USSR 1985

*--Mark never ratified by the International Amateur Athletic Federation but considered statistically valid.