May 5, 2008
By Herb Benenson, Cal Media Relations
On the first day of freshman basketball practice at Berkeley's St. Mary's High School, Jeff Rogers knows exactly where he needs to be.
Although he serves as the school's track & field coach, he is right there in the gym, studying aspiring players as they run through layup drills. At this point, whether the ball goes through the hoop doesn't concern him much. Instead, he's carefully analyzing the players to see if they have the right spring in their step.
His goal? Uncovering the next great high jumper.
"They jump off of one foot and reach up to lay it in," Rogers said. "That mimics a high jump motion as well as you are going to get in another sport. Some kids you can see that they are going to naturally get off the ground pretty easily. High jumpers have a bounce to their step. You can just spot them."
Rogers speaks from experience. A high jumper himself, he starred at Cal and set the still-standing school record with a leap of 7-5 3/4 in 1990. And almost eight years ago, he found just the person who could break his Golden Bear mark - current Cal senior Ed Wright.
Wright was a skinny 5-7 freshman when he tried out for the St. Mary's basketball team his first year at the school. But right away, Rogers noticed something special.
"I looked at him and said, `That's my guy,'" recalled Rogers, who had just lost 7-foot high jumper and 2000 state champion Ebon Glenn (younger brother of former Cal offensive lineman Tarik Glenn) to graduation. Wright was initially hesitant to leave the court for the track. But after a little coaxing from Rogers, he decided to give high jump a try. Results came slowly. As a freshman, he managed to reach only 5-4, and frustration set in.
"I didn't even like the high jump, to be honest with you," Wright said. "The technique was just too hard to grasp at the time. I didn't have the patience to do it. All I wanted to do was play basketball."
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Wright decided that he'd had enough of the high jump and would return to basketball fulltime. Rogers, though, convinced him to come out again for his sophomore season, and soon, everything began to click. As he began to accept the discipline required of the high jump, Wright's burning desire to win and, according to Rogers, outperform his predecessors, also helped fuel his improvement.
Wright qualified for the state meet as a sophomore, leaping 6-4, and after an injury-filled junior campaign, returned as a senior, clearing 7-feet at the league championships and winning the state meet with a jump of 6-10 1/4.
"Some of the best high jumpers in the world don't have basketball backgrounds," Wright said. "They're very technical. The technique of the high jump is probably the biggest thing to conquer to be an elite high jumper. That's something I've struggled with for years. And I'm still learning. I haven't even jumped for 10 years, so this is still new to me."
Following graduation from St. Mary's, Wright soon found himself in a Cal uniform, jumping for the same coach - Ed Miller - who mentored Rogers during his schooldays in Berkeley.
"It's a neat little family circle," Wright said.
The relationship between Miller and Rogers was a guiding factor in Wright's decision to remain close to home for college. During the recruiting process, Miller presented the history of the high jump at Cal - one that included 10 conference champions and 20 All-Americans, Rogers among them - to demonstrate how much the school cares about the event.
Almost right away, Wright found success as a Bear. As a freshman, he tied for third at the Pac-10 championships, jumping 6-11 3/4, and he matched his place and height as a sophomore. In 2007, Wright broke through with league titles and All-American honors both indoors and outdoors, setting a personal-best with a leap of 7-3 1/4 when he won the NCAA West Regional crown.
Wright has gotten off to another strong start in 2008 as the repeat conference champion indoors (7-3) and looks to maintain his momentum as he heads into the outdoor season.
Wright credits his rapid improvement to his competitive nature, a trait he developed at an early age.
"I'm pretty hard on myself," he said. "I don't like losing, and I'll do whatever it takes to win. That stems from basketball. Late in ballgames when you're losing, you want to take the ball to the basket ever time. It's kind of the same with high jump. You just have to be a little careful that you don't press because it is such a technical event. Having the will to want to win every time and wanting to be the best - that type of confidence is definitely important to have. You want to have a positive and confident attitude."
Miller, a member of the Cal Athletic Hall of Fame for his exploits as a decathlete, believes that Wright has both the mental and physical abilities to make the U.S. Olympic team someday, perhaps even as soon as this summer if everything - and a little luck - comes together. He has become a consistent 7-foot jumper and has raised the bar each season he has been in Berkeley.
"Athletic ability is a major factor, of course, but high jumping consists of a lot of physics," said Miller, who is in his 25th season coaching the Bears. "You have to understand the positions to get into to jump high. It's not just running and jumping. It's leaning into the turn. It's developing centrifugal force, which is really loading into the ground at the right angle. It's going vertical at the takeoff, not sliding into the pit. You have to trust that you can jump straight up in the air out of a turn and then let this somersaulting effect pull you into the pit. Ed has athletic ability and he's a bright kid, so he has all of the components."
During his tenure at Cal, Miller has coached six All-Americans and four Pac-10 champions in the high jump, and Wright's big meet results have surpassed them all. His fifth-place finish at last year's NCAA meet was the best for a Bear since Bill Carter tied for fifth in 1965, while Wright's leap of 7-3 at the 2007 Pac-10 championships not only made him Cal's first league titlist in 13 years, but also set a school record for the conference championships.
Though he won't necessarily admit it, Wright almost seemed predestined for a career in track & field. Wright's father is Mal Whitfield, one of the most accomplished runners in U.S. history. An Olympic goal medalist in the 800 meters at the 1948 and 1952 Games, Whitfield also won a bronze in the 400 meters in 1948 and was part of two other medal-winning relays. The 1954 Sullivan Award winner as the outstanding amateur athlete in the United States, he was inducted into the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame in 1988.
Following his competitive days, Whitfield began a distinguished diplomatic career, mostly in Africa. In 1986, he and Harriet Wright welcomed a son, who was born in Nairobi, Kenya. Harriet Wright soon returned to her Oakland home with Ed, where she raised him with the help of her father, who provided a strong male presence in his life.
"I don't think my dad's success in track & field inspired me to be a track athlete," Ed Wright said. "When I was younger, I used to run the 400. Everyone thought, he'll be like his dad. But it wasn't an event that I really enjoyed, and I really didn't have a passion for track & field. I just wanted to be active and play basketball. When I picked it back up in high school, I wanted to create my own legacy. What my dad has done for the sport is phenomenal. It would be hard to duplicate that. If I have the opportunity to create my own legacy in track & field, I want to do it in the high jump."
Because of their continental separation, Wright and Whitfield haven't built a strong relationship, staying in touch via occasional letters to each other. Instead, Wright credits his mother and grandfather as the most positive influences on his upbringing. He mostly kept his relationship to his famous father quiet.
"I didn't know about his dad until he was in school here," Miller said. "He never mentioned it, and his mother is the dominant person in his life. She's a wonderful person and has done a great job with him."
Since he has been at Cal, Wright has matured in all aspects of the high jump. He has filled out to a full 5-10 in height and increased his knowledge of his specialty. At Edwards Stadium, that includes observing how other high-caliber athletes approach their events, including 2007 NCAA 800-meter champion and fellow senior Alysia Johnson.
"One way I get psyched up for meets is by watching other people and their preparation, seeing how seriously they take it," Wright said. "Alysia is my hero, my role model. I've picked up a lot from her. She is one of those people to look at and admire because she's so focused and so intense."
Wright has come a long way from his early workouts with Rogers at St. Mary's, realizing that he must completely devote himself in order to succeed at the highest levels. He has learned that he cannot wait until the day of the meet to start preparing mentally for competition. Just as he does with his physical training, he begins priming himself emotionally well before the schedule even begins.
"A month before the season starts, I'm already thinking about my first meet," he said. "I'm already thinking about height progressions. I've always been an intense competitor. I'm always thinking about my next move.
"It's just like golf when someone has to putt," he added. "They have to visualize. They have to find where the break in the green is. In the high jump, we have to visualize our approach before we run it. There is preparation before each jump."
Wright, whose love for the sport has grown tremendously since his arrival at Cal, continues to take advantage of the opportunities presented to him. In addition to training daily with Miller, he still regularly checks in with Rogers and leans on him for additional advice.
"He's the first person I call after any track meet," Wright said of Rogers. "His record is still intact, and I definitely want to become the school record holder. For someone who has kind of weaned me into this event, I want to stay in touch with him as much as possible. He kind of made all this happen."
And to think, it all started with a simple layup at freshman basketball tryouts.
