Mr. Triple Jump

A few days ago I was clicking through some triple jump videos on youtube and I came across a video of me in 1983 at the first World Athletics Championships in Helsinki, Finland.  It showed the typical Willie Banks “show” and I seemed to be having fun as usual.  I thought to myself with a smile how crazy I was when I was young and talented.  What a great time I had when I was competing.  When I was young I thought there was no one else who was having as much fun as I was at that time.

After a few seconds of reminiscing I turned to the comments.  The first few comments were fairly typical.  Then I came to a comment that was a little disturbing.  The writer said that I looked like I was on drugs.  I was completely shocked.  How could someone think that because I was having fun that I was on some type of drug?

At first I was offended and wanted to fire off a “zinger” to the “idiot”.  But, upon reflection, I realized that young people today have no idea who I was and what I did in the triple jump.  They don’t know how I got started nor how much fun I had at all competitions, win or lose.  In fact, most young people have no idea that I started the clapping.  Well, I guess it is my fault for getting old…

Fortunately, now there is the internet that can be used to talk about the old days and compare them to the present.  We can discuss history and the future of the triple jump.  I find comfort in knowing that the writer was ignorant and not stupid.  Hopefully, one day the writer will read about the history of the triple jump and realize that the event is more special than he can possibly imagine.

While it sucks getting old, it sure is good to be able to take advantage of the knowledge of history to make better triple jump coaching decisions.

This entry was posted on August 22, 2009 at 4:21 pm and is filed under Jump. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.