Stringfellow Has a Super Agenda

He’s not faster than a speeding bullet.

He’s not more powerful than a locomotive.

And he can’t leap tall buildings in a single bound.

But Savante Stringfellow, who has Superman tattoos on his left biceps and left thigh, has led a U.S. resurgence in the long jump in the last two years.

U.S. long jumpers, from Ellery Clark in the first modern Olympic Games at Athens in 1896 to Carl Lewis in the Games at Atlanta a century later, had won 20 of the 22 Olympics in which they had competed.

U.S. jumpers had placed 1-2 a dozen times and swept gold, silver and bronze medals on four occasions during that stretch. But the U.S. failed to win a medal in the long jump in the 2000 Games in Sydney and only one U.S. jumper, eighth-place Dwight Phillips, advanced to the final.

For the first time since Track & Field News magazine began its world rankings in 1948, no U.S. long jumper was ranked among the top 10 in 2000.

Stories detailing the U.S. demise and reasons why it had occurred, ranging from the retirement of four-time Olympic champion Lewis and world-record holder Mike Powell to the lack of 25-foot jumpers at the high school level in recent years, were written in publications such as Track & Field News. But Stringfellow, who will compete in the invitational phase of the Mt. San Antonio College Relays in Walnut today, said the U.S. woes could be traced to the fact that the none of the U.S. jumpers at Sydney was older than 23.

“I didn’t think it was fair to put all this blame on us,” said Stringfellow, 24. “To put all this pressure on us because some jumpers who were in their late 20s didn’t do what they were suppose to do before us. To be honest, some of us probably shouldn’t have been on the Olympic team. We were too young.”

That is no longer the case.

Stringfellow won a silver medal in the World Championships in Edmonton in 2001 and led the U.S. to the Nos. 2, 3 and 10 spots in the world rankings that year and he, 23-year-old Miguel Pate and 25-year old Phillips gave the U.S. a sweep of the first three spots last year.

“We had a chip on our shoulders,” Stringfellow said about the attitude of the top U.S. jumpers the last two years. “We felt like we had something to prove and we’ve proved it. We’re back where we belong.”

That doesn’t mean the gregarious, cocky-to-a-degree, 6-foot-3, 188-pound Stringfellow is satisfied.

He wants to better his career best of 27 feet 11 1/2 inches, win the gold medal in the World Championships at Paris in August and win the Olympic title at Athens in 2004. He also feels he’s capable of breaking the world record of 29-4 1/2 set by Powell in the 1991 World Championships in Tokyo.

“Getting over 28 feet is something I’ve been wanting to do for a while,” Stringfellow said. “I know that once I do it once, I’ll start to do it consistently and so will some of the guys like [Phillips] and [Pate].”

Joe Walker, who has coached Stringfellow since his freshman year at the University of Mississippi in 1998, points out that Stringfellow only started long jumping in 1999 and that he possesses athleticism rare in even elite track and field athletes. He says he also trains very hard.

“He has unlimited ability,” said Walker, who coached long jump great Larry Myricks at Mississippi College during the late 1970s. “I think he has the ability to have a long 10-year career at this level and jump very far before he’s done. It would be silly to put a limit of what he can do.”

Stringfellow was a basketball player growing up in Jackson, Miss., but the boys’ track coach at Provine High encouraged him to come out for the high jump as a junior after watching him win a slam-dunk contest.

He cleared 6-8 in his first meet and improved to 7 feet as a senior after helping Provine to the state 5-A Division title in basketball.

Three of his teammates went on to play basketball for Ole Miss, but Walker signed Stringfellow to a track scholarship because of his athleticism.

Stringfellow struggled his freshman year in the high jump, but Walker persuaded him to try the long jump as a sophomore and he jumped 26-7 3/4 that year and finished third in the NCAA championships.

He won the NCAA title and improved his best to 27-2 3/4 in 2000. He finished fifth in the Olympic trials at Cal State Sacramento that summer, but was added to the Olympic team when third-place Walter Davis and fourth-place Robert Howard decided to compete only in the triple jump in Sydney.

He was eliminated in the Olympic qualifying round but has been on a roll since.

He jumped 27-9 1/4 in the Ole Miss Invitational last Saturday and hopes to break 28 feet for the first time today.

“I only took two jumps in that meet,” he said. “I figured I’d save something for when I came out to sunny Southern California.”

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Track and Field

What: Mt. San Antonio Relays

Where: Mt. San Antonio College

When: Today. University-open events start at 10 a.m. Invitational field events start at 10 a.m. Invitational running events begin at 12:35 p.m.

Admission: General admission, $18; seniors, $12; children 6-13, $5; children 5 and under, free.