Birmingham’s Lincoln Jumps for Joy After Becoming a Dad : Track and field: Girlfriend gives birth to a son, then senior wins four events against Monroe in conference meet.

Already regarded as one of the region’s most versatile track and field performers, James Lincoln of Birmingham High was given a much more important title at 1 a.m. Friday when he became the proud father of a 7-pound 2-ounce boy named Jahsaan Dakise Lincoln.

Lincoln and his girlfriend, Jovonna Cord, were up most of the night with their newborn child before Lincoln grabbed three hours of sleep. After attending classes, he won four events to lead Birmingham to a 77 1/2-49 1/2 victory over Monroe in a Valley Pac-8 Conference meet.

The victory was the 56th in a row in dual-meet competition for Birmingham (6-0, 6-0 in league meets) and gave the Braves at least a share of their seventh consecutive conference title. They can win the title outright with a victory against Van Nuys next week.

“It’s been a big day. A lot has happened,” Lincoln said with a broad smile. “I’m really satisfied with the way things went today.”

Lincoln, who has signed a national letter of intent with Cal State Northridge, began the meet by winning the 110-meter high hurdles in 15.1 seconds and leading Birmingham to a 1-2-3 sweep.

He followed that with victories in the long jump (wind-aided 22 feet 2 inches), high jump (6-4) and triple jump (a personal best of 46-0 1/2) as Birmingham repelled a Monroe charge by outscoring the Vikings, 29-3, in the last four events.

“I knew I would win four events coming in here,” Lincoln said. “But I definitely wanted to improve some of my marks. I wasn’t real happy where a couple of them were. . . .

“I wanted to go 7-2 in the high jump, because (Jahsaan) weighed 7 pounds 2 ounces, but my steps were just totally off today. But I did go 22 feet in the long jump and that was important because he was born on the 22nd.”

Lincoln, who has a personal best of 6-10 in the high jump, never got untracked in that event. It took him three attempts to clear his opening height of 6-2 and two attempts to make 6-4 before going on to the triple jump.

“I didn’t feel like I was going to jump very high at all,” he said. “So I just decided to call it a day.”

Lincoln’s best performance was his last as he improved upon his previous best of 45-10, despite jumping into a head wind.

Monroe (5-1, 5-1), led by double winners Kenny Hopson and Jose Padilla, won six of the 10 track events, but Birmingham won all five field events, outscoring the Vikings, 38-7, in the process.

“I think things went pretty much as expected,” Birmingham Coach Scott King said. “We knew they were going to do well in the sprints and distance races with Padilla, but we also knew we had a chance to sweep other events.”

Hopson ran 10.9 in the 100 and 22.3 in the 200 to lead Monroe to 1-2-3 finishes, but Birmingham swept the high hurdles, high jump, pole vault and shotput.

Padilla timed 4 minutes 30.2 seconds in the 1,600 and 10:01.0 in the 3,200 for Monroe, which produced a season best of 42.4 to win the 400 relay.