Yes, whites can jump too: Who is Dick Fosbury?

We know the athletes who gave their name to a movement in sports. But the athlete most identified with the movement is American high jumper Dick Fosbury. Fosbury, who died the previous week at the age of 76, was the most transformative athlete in a sport, perhaps the greatest innovator.

In the 1960s, scissors and riding techniques were widely used in the high jump. However, with these techniques, the high jump seemed to have reached a limit. At that time, Portland high school student Fosbury began working on a new technique. This technique, in which the bar is crossed on the back, soon became known as the 'Fosbury jump'. Fosbury is a US collegiate champion. Until the 1968 Olympics, the world did not know much about this technique. Fosbury's mouth fell open as he became the champion with 2.24 meters in Mexico City. The Fosbury technique became standard in almost 3-4 years. Between 1973 and 1993 the high jump world record improved by 15 cm.

The 1968 Mexico City Olympics are remembered for iconic moments from US athletes. There's nothing wrong with that. Because Tommie Smith and John Carlos' "Black Panther" salute or Bob Beamon's long jump record remains in the most exceptional corners of Olympic memory. However, there is another American who stands out beyond his successful performance by changing the basic technique of his sport:

Olympic champion high jumper, Dick Fosbury…

Whites can't jump

“Billy, listen to me. Whites can't jump."

In the well-known movie “White Men Can't Jump,” Wesley Snipes gave the bad news to Woody Harrelson, who was trying to dunk the basketball hoop. It has always been said that blacks have an advantage in this regard due to their genetic predisposition. But many athletes have managed to prove otherwise. Even if they sometimes have to come up with new inventions…

Richard Douglas Fosbury (March 6, 1947 – March 12, 2023) was an American high jumper, who is considered one of the most influential athletes in the history of track and field. He won a gold medal at the 1968 Olympics, revolutionizing the high jump event with a "back-first" technique now known as the Fosbury flop. His method was to sprint diagonally towards the bar, then curve and leap backwards over the bar, which gave him a much lower center of mass in flight than traditional techniques. 

Dick Fosbury decided to play sports while living as a high school student in Oregon, located in the northwest of the USA. Dick wanted to try his luck in American football, which is a very popular sport but was said to be weak for this. He was also found untalented for the basketball team. Finally, the direction was back to the high jump bar.

In the 1960s, there were two popular methods of high jumping. One was the "straddle" method, in which the athlete turned face down while crossing the bar, and the other was the "scissor" method, in which the athlete first crossed the outer leg and then the inner leg over the bar. Dick would not have been able to bend the widely used straddle method, as he was performing his works with the scissors method.

During his university years, he made some changes in the scissors technique with the effect of studying in the engineering department. Although he made small progress, he could not reach the level he desired. Perhaps the aphorism that Wesley Snipes would say years later was true:

Whites couldn't jump...

This is the inventor! I swear by the inventor!

“Fosbury was extraordinarily ordinary, the literal meaning of mediocre. He wasn't a great athlete, nor was he a terrible athlete. He wasn't a great student, nor was he a terrible student. He wasn't mischievous, he wasn't an angel either."

This is how Dick's biographer, Bob Welsch, explained what he was and isn't. Yeah, Dick wasn't a good athlete. He didn't like to train, he didn't train his muscles enough. However, a solution could always be found. So what did he do? He worked his head.

When Dick awoke from his oppressive dreams one morning, he found himself in front of a giant jumping bar. In a change made at that time, the area where the athlete fell after jumping was replaced with a rubber pad instead of a pool of foam pieces. Thus, after a diagonal run, the bar could be crossed on the back and again dropped onto the back. There was no point in that. That's how the "Fosbury flop", the only method used by high jumpers today, came to life in an engineer's mind.

With this new method, he could rise much higher, even breaking the school record in his second grade. Next came the 1968 Mexico City Olympics for Dick, who made it to the U.S. Olympic Team without difficulty.

"I was one of the top five or six high jumpers, but to be honest I didn't think I would win a gold medal in Mexico."

Not just Dick, no one expected him to reach for the medal. Moreover, many journalists made fun of his jumping method. But Dick was going to give the best performance of his life. He didn't make any mistakes until 2.24 meters, which was the world record of that period. With the crowd behind him as the competition progressed, Dick was reaching for the gold medal by breaking the record for the third. Coach Greg Kraft would summarize those moments later:

“It was something entirely his own invention that astounded the whole world. Maybe if the referees knew that something like this would be attempted earlier, they would not have allowed it. It was a truly revolutionary technique.”

Dick Fosbury caught the whole world off guard. Although he could not repeat this success later, one of the best examples of the involvement of intelligence in sports lies in his story. Crossing the bar on the back instead of prone brought a whole new perspective to the sport of high jumping. Sometimes you really need to turn things around to turn your luck around. And finally:

Yes, whites can jump too.