“I hate track!” Kei-Jian Buckley yelled after his final high jump attempt Wednesday afternoon.
The Liberty High School senior had just missed his third straight attempt. His day was over. Frustration was boiling over as well. This was his reaction to winning by six inches.
To be Kei-Jian Buckley at a high school track meet is unlike anything most people can imagine. On this sunny, windy Wednesday, Buckley made his opening jump with only one jumper left in the competition. He cleared it easily. His Sherwood opponent missed three tries at 6-0. Buckley won the competition with one jump.
He raised the bar to 6-2 and cleared it with no problem.
While sitting on a bench, taking his shoes off between jumps, he had the officials raise the bar to 6-4. Again, no problem. He sailed over the bar effortlessly as if floating through the air.
Shoes off, bar up.
“I’ll do one more warm-up before going to 7 feet,” Buckley told a handful of high schoolers surrounding him. Now at 6-6, Buckley knocked the bar off on his first attempt. Then his second. And finally his third. He won the competition at 6-4, leading him to curse the sport he’s best at.
That’s because to Buckley, 6-4 is a bad day. His best jump this year is 6-10, followed by other leaps of 6-9 ½, 6-8 and 6-7. Only five prep jumpers in the country have posted higher heights than Buckley’s 6-10. So falling a half-foot short of that standard leaves him feeling like he came up short.
Only his definition of below average is skewed from most.
A bad day for Buckley still wins every high school meet he enters in Oregon. For the other leapers around, hearing him get upset after clearing 6-4 is frustrating to his peers. Clearly he has a gift he should not be upset with.
But to look at his competitive drive, one has to admire it. He realizes he can do better and is disappointed he did not. A poor performance for Buckley during a high school dual meet is like Mark Twain writing a bad novel: The person responsible for it won’t be pleased with the outcome, but everyone else wishes they could reach that level. Buckley’s victory in Wednesday’s four-way meet was never in question. The only question was how high would he go? That’s the question other high jumpers were betting push-ups on prior to the start of the competition.
“6-10,” said one. “Seven feet,” said another.
At least four fellow competitors were in on this wager.
Not one of them foresaw Buckley missing at 6-6.
As they were doing their push-ups, you could only imagine them muttering to themselves “I hate track.”
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