BEIJING — Forty years after his gargantuan long jump in Mexico City obliterated the existing world record by nearly 2 feet, Bob Beamon’s “Perfect Flight” remains one of the greatest achievements in Olympic history.
But few realize what a leap it was for him to get there from the New York City borough of Queens, where he was an aimless, troublemaking teen before discovering track and field.
That’s how he begins telling his story: being unable to read or write when he was 14. Being a delinquent and going to an “alternative” school, where he was frisked and locked inside from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Yet even then he had a strange feeling he would do something special some day.
On Oct. 18, 1968, Beamon flew 29 feet, 2 1/2 inches, inspiring the word “Beamonesque” to describe seemingly superhuman feats.
But before he could shock the world, he had to find himself. It is a message he promulgates today through the Bob Beamon Organization for Youth, with a goal of getting troubled kids pointed in the right direction.
“I always look back at when I didn’t have a dream, when I didn’t have a spirit,” Beamon said. “I didn’t know what the Olympics was all about. I was just hanging out on the street. I was not humble. I was not a nice person, doing things that were socially unacceptable.
“When you can’t read or write, at 14 or 15, in most cases you’re headed for trouble, and trouble was finding me.”
He found his calling when he was 15. Using borrowed shoes in a Junior Olympics meet, he jumped 24-1 and fell in love with flying. He would jump 25-6 in high school, becoming the first person in his family to graduate from high school, and earned a scholarship to Texas-El Paso.
“This is when I committed myself to track and field,” Beamon said. “I trained and I trained and I trained — in the rain, in the snow. I began to feel incredible about myself.”
In Mexico City, Beamon almost didn’t survive the qualifying round, fouling on his first two attempts. He made it on his third and final attempt.
Before his historic leap the next day, he noticed the clouds parting and sun coming out.
“I said, ‘I cannot be denied what I’ve trained so hard for.’ I stood up at this incredible runway in Mexico City and said, ‘It’s time to take it to another level.’ I ran down this runway, it was so fast I couldn’t even control it. Everything was relaxed. I hit the board, bam!
“Wow, half an hour later I’m still flying.”
He outjumped the optical measuring device, so meet officials had to find an old-fashioned measuring tape. Then it flashed on the board: 8.90 meters.
Which meant nothing to Beamon.
“Ralph Boston said, ‘You just jumped 29 feet, 2 1/2 inches.’ All of a sudden I was on the ground, I just lost it,” Beamon said.
The record he broke was not quite 27 feet, 5 inches.
“While I’m on the ground,” Beamon said, “I thought: ‘This is unbelievable. Maybe I’ll wake up from a dream.’ It was the most incredible experience of my life. It was exciting, it was unreal, to even think I had jumped 29 feet. I didn’t even get a chance to jump 28 feet. We went over 28 feet and went to 29.”
Mike Powell broke Beamon’s world record in 1991, but Beamon’s jump will forever remain an inspiration.
“In that 29-foot-plus jump, 8.9 meters, Bob Beamon was perfect, and in that moment illuminated to the world that as human beings, we can be better than we are,” U.S. Olympic Committee chief executive Jim Scherr said. “We can lift ourselves up. We can do amazing things. In our own lives we can be Beamonesque.”
John Meyer: 303-954-1616 or jmeyer@denverpost.com
