Brown Soared To HJ Meet Records

It took a couple of years, but Reynaldo Brown of Cal Poly finally found some competition in the high jump at the 1973 NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships.

It was almost more than he bargained for.

Brown won the 1971 NCAA title with a meet-record 7-3 (2.21m) by a relatively easy margin of 3 inches (7 centimeters), but when he cleared the same height at the 1973 meet, he was in third place.

Ahead on fewer misses were both Tom Woods of Oregon State and Arizona’s Robert Joseph. The height matched Joseph’s PR, while Woods – NCAA champ in 1972 as a freshman at 7-3¼ (a new MR, but also 2.21m) – had cleared a collegiate record 7-4½ (2.25m) earlier in the year.

Brown took control with a first-attempt clearance at 7-4 (2.23m), while Woods needed all three tries to get over and Joseph could go no higher.

Brown – who used the straddle technique, still predominant in those days – found himself battling a flopper. It wasn’t the first time for Brown, who in 1968 made the Olympic final, placing fifth as a 17-year-old when another Oregon State star – Dick Fosbury – won the gold with the style named after him. Woods, in fact, would train sometimes with Fosbury.

The bar next went to 7-5 (2.26m), a height that “featured probably the six best consecutive misses ever recorded there, as both Brown and Woods had the crowd gasping on each attempt,” wrote Garry Hill of Track & Field News.

Brown thus got the win with fewer misses at 7-4, but Woods also earned a share of the meet record.

For Brown, it was his fourth NCAA outdoor high jump title – still the most by a man, combining all divisions – as he preceded his 1971 and 1973 NCAA Division I (called the University Division then) victories by winning the College Division. All four wins came with meet records.