Boy in Space

The sensation of the young indoor track season is a lanky, 17-year-old Boston University freshman named John Thomas. Unheralded and almost unnoticed as the more spectacular racing events swirled around the track, Thomas broke the world's indoor record for the high jump twice in the last three weeks. This week in the Millrose Games at Manhattan's Madison Square Garden, Thomas will pit his new 6 ft. 11 3/4 in. indoor record against Outdoor Champion Charlie Dumas, who holds the U.S. outdoor record of 7 ft. 1/2 in.

The towering (6 ft. 4 1/4 in.) son of a hefty Negro bus driver, Thomas grew up in Boston, and he is still growing. He weighs 185 Ibs. now, should get up to 215 in five years. Key to the Thomas style is the powerful spring in his left heel, developed by hours of lying on his back and hoisting 350-lb. weights with his legs. Approaching the bar from the left at a 37DEG angle, he takes seven progressively longer strides -then brakes hard on his left heel. He springs off the heel, kicks mightily with the right foot that sucks him into the air and belly-rolls him over the bar.

An intelligent boy especially strong in math, John Thomas also runs the hurdles for fun, throws the javelin 150 ft., has put the shot 45 ft. with no special practice. What bothers him most is pre-jump nervousness. "The moment I fear is just standing there waiting to go." He used to cover his ears as the loudspeaker announced the jump he was about to attempt. When he broke his own record in the Knights of Columbus meet in Boston (where he first ran the hurdles -"It loosens me up"), Thomas did it during the climax of the big mile race. With all eyes on Miler Ron Delany, Thomas quietly soared to unmatched heights.

"If I were that boy," says B.U.'s Field Events Coach Ed Flanagan, "I'd figure on the high jump in next year's Olympics, the jump and the hurdles in the next one, the decathlon in his prime. He won't even get to his prime until he's maybe 30 -a good dozen years to go."

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