We heard the news of the passing of Jan Johnson this past week. The news came from several teammates, friends, and internet sources. Jan was the bronze medalist in 1972 in the equipment controversy brought on by who knows in the I.A.A.F. when they disallowed the poles Jan and Bob Seagren had been using for the most part of a year. It was something about the lack of availability on the open market or the like. Have to remember the there wasn't much open market in the Eastern Europe bloc and there was lot of behind closed doors shenanigans involved in this episode of the Cold War. The '68 and '72 Olympics were just one controversy after another from a pre games massacre in Mexico City to the Israeli hostage killings in Munich. Events in the Middle East today can be traced back to that terrible time.
Jan Johnson, an Illinois boy started off at the U. of Kansas and transferred to Alabama and was a three time NCAA champion for The Tide. Here is what Wikipedia says about him.
Jan Johnson (born November 11, 1950) was an American former athlete who competed mainly in the pole vault. He graduated in 1972 from the University of Alabama, where he holds the school record in the pole vault at 18 feet, 1/2 inch. Johnson was born in Hammond, Indiana.
He competed for the United States in the 1972 Summer Olympics held in Munich, Germany, where he won the bronze medal.
Johnson held a world indoor record at 17 feet, 7 inches while competing for the University of Kansas. He transferred to Alabama, where he became a three-time NCAA champion. He won the 1971 USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships for the Alabama Crimson Tide.[1] He was also an accomplished long jumper and sprinter in both high school and college.
Johnson won the 1968 Illinois state high school championship while competing at Bloom High School in Chicago Heights, Illinois. In 1972, the gymnasium of Rickover Junior High School in Sauk Village, Illinois was dedicated and named in his honor. His younger brother Tim Johnson, set the National HS indoor record of 16'7 in 1974. His daughter, Chelsea, became a two-time NCAA outdoor champion in the pole vault for UCLA. Chelsea was silver medalist for the US in the women's pole vault at the 2009 World Championships in Athletics in Berlin.[2][3]
Jan Johnson ran "Sky Jumpers," a pole vault camp based on the central coast of California.[4] Johnson also hosts auxiliary "Sky Jumpers" camps annually in Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Johnson has been an outspoken innovator and advocate for pole vault safety. He co-authored The Illustrated History of the Pole Vault, published in 2007. His second book: "The High Flyer and the Cultural Revolution" has recently been published to high reviews.
Thanks to Mike Solomon and Walt Murphy for bringing this news to our attention.
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