In 1968 being a raw recruit in the Army I was pretty isolated from current events in track and field. That was when Dick Fosbury was beginning to be the subject of conversation for his unique style of high jumping from a different angle in his approach to the high jump bar and then instead of leaning back and kicking upward like a football punter and turning over in the air and going over the bar belly down and parallel, Fosbury would begin turning his back to the bar, taking off backwards, going over the bar with back arched, lower legs bent that would suddenly extend and rise as torso and upper legs cleared the bar, and then dropping dangerously into some very primitive pits of that day which were little more than a few cut up foam blocks held together in a makeshift netting.
I was home on leave and possibly the Olympic trials or AAU meet was on TV and my dad said, "You gotta watch this guy." What I saw for the first time was incredible. He can't be doing that! He can't do it again, but he did and kept going higher. By the time the Olympics rolled around I was able to get access to a TV on the base and saw Dick Fosbury prevail over the best in the world at the same time, the marathoners were arriving and circling the track.
Interestingly the story below describes his development of the new style stemming from a family tragedy that happened as a young child. Carrying the trauma of loss of his brother may have in some indescribable way motivated him in the desire to stay with the event and thrive. Who knows for sure?
Pioneer is a modest noun to describe Dick Fosbury. Within a few years everyone in the world had converted to his technique. His name will always be part of the high jump world. Who else's name will ever be so universal in the sport?
Joe Rogers, former Ball State and US Military Academy coach has added this insightful story.
Here is a three minute tribute to the man: 3 Minutes - Dick Fosbury by Aigur
Here in his own words is how he came to the flop How Fosbury Found the Flop
The following article is from the Associated Press on March 13, 2023
By Eddie Pells | Associated Press
Dick Fosbury, the lanky leaper who revamped the technical discipline of high jump and won an Olympic gold medal with his “Fosbury Flop,” has died. He was 76.
Fosbury died Sunday after a recurrence with lymphoma, according to his publicist, Ray Schulte.
Before Fosbury, many high jumpers cleared their heights by running parallel to the bar, then using a straddle kick to leap over before landing with their faces pointed downward. At the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, Fosbury took off at an angle, leaped backward, bent himself into a “J” shape to catapult his 6-foot-4 frame over the bar, then crashed headfirst into the landing pit.
It was a convention-defying move, and with the world watching, Fosbury cleared 2.24 meters (7 feet, 4¼ inches) to win the gold and set an Olympic record. By the next Olympics, 28 of the 40 jumpers were using Fosbury’s technique. The Montreal Games in 1976 marked the last Olympics in which a high jumper won using a technique other than the Fosbury Flop.
“The world legend is probably used too often,” sprint great Michael Johnson tweeted. “Dick Fosbury was a true LEGEND! He changed an entire event forever with a technique that looked crazy at the time but the result made it the standard.”
Over time, Fosbury’s move became about more than simply high jumping. It is often used by business leaders and university professors as a study in innovation and willingness to take chances and break the mold.
“It’s literally genius,” said 2012 Olympic high jump champion Erik Kynard Jr. “And it takes huge courage, obviously. And took huge courage at the time to even consider something so dangerous. Due to the equipment then, it was something that was a little on edge to attempt.”
Fosbury started tinkering with a new technique in the early ’60s, as a teenager at Medford High School in Oregon. Among his discoveries was a need to move his takeoff point farther back for higher jumps, so he could change the apex of the parabola shape of his jump to clear the bar. Most traditional jumpers of that day planted a foot and took off from the same spot regardless of the height they were attempting.
“I knew I had to change my body position, and that’s what started first the revolution, and over the next two years, the evolution,” Fosbury said in a 2014 interview with The Corvallis Gazette-Times. “During my junior year, I carried on with this new technique, and each meet I continued to evolve or change, but I was improving. My results were getting better.”
The technique was the subject of scorn and ridicule in some corners. The term Fosbury Flop is credited to the Medford Mail-Tribune, which wrote the headline “Fosbury Flops Over the Bar” after one of his high school meets. The reporter wrote that Fosbury looked like a fish flopping in a boat.
Fosbury liked “Fosbury Flop.”
“It’s poetic. It’s alliterative. It’s a conflict,” he once said.
In a chapter in his book about the Mexico City Games, journalist Richard Hoffer wrote that Fosbury once received a letter from an LA medical director suggesting his technique would lead to “a rash of broken necks.”
“For the good of young Americans, you should stop this ridiculous attack on the bar,” the letter said.
As a kid, Fosbury threw himself into sports as a way of dealing with the grief after his younger brother, Greg, was killed by a drunken driver while the two boys were riding bikes. Unable to stick with the football or basketball teams, Fosbury tried track but struggled there with the preferred jump of those days — the straddle.
Fosbury’s biographer, Bob Welch, wrote that Fosbury was fine dealing with people ridiculing his style because, to him, it still wasn’t as painful as the sorrow he felt for the loss of his brother.
Innovation won out. Decades later, Fosbury’s flop remains a hit, and his willingness to take a chance remains a lesson from which almost anyone can learn.
“He was as innovative as Henry Ford was to the Model T,” Kynard said. “He’s the creator of what we still do to this day.”
Associated Press Sports Writer Pat Graham contributed to this report.
The following article leads one to believe that the first person to experiment and try the flop in competition was a jumper from Missoula, Montana in the early 1960's, though he was a long way from perfection. His name is Bruce Quande at Flathead County High School. Here is his story.
And lest we forget Canadian Debbie Brill who developed a similar style called the Brill Bend independently from Dick Fosbury.
Lying awake last night thinking over events, I remembered that Dick Fosbury once contacted us about a photo on our blog. Roy and I got a big kick out of his query. George
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