Indoor high jumping, on a stage, in July, in Bakersfield?

Dick Fosbury brought his skills and his revolutionary jumping technique to a stage in Bakersfield.

    It’s July (and hot!) in Bakersfield. The year is 1968, Olympic year, and Bakersfield College’s legendary meet director/announcer Gil Bishop got an idea of an indoor high jump meet on the stage of the Civic Auditorium with free admission. He convinced three international class jumpers along with one community college talent and two prep sensations to compete (July 11, 1968). 800 interested showed up for this first indoor track and field event in Bakersfield history that was sponsored by the Bob Elias Hall of Fame.
   Bishop first convinced Dick Fosbury (1968 Mexico Olympics Champion that fall) to attend and that led to a stellar field.  Fosbury had just completed the past month winning the NCAA (7’2”) and Olympic Trials (7’1”) high jump competitions, and who had startled the track and field world with his revolutionary technique of clearing the bar backwards.
  The other five jumpers rounding out the field were Peter Boyce, an Australian attending Stanford, who had the best jump in America that year at 7’3”; Ray McGill of Bakersfield College, who had twice cleared 6’10”; Otis Burrell (LA Valley CC/Nevada U.) AAU champion the year before in Bakersfield’s Memorial Stadium at 7’ ¾”; Otis Hailey ,only 5-11, from nearby Wasco, who had cleared 7’1 ¼” at the Kern Relays; and Reynaldo Brown, only a junior at Compton HS (Ca.) who had won the previous two state meet titles in the event and had a best of  7’ ¾”.

  Fosbury won the 40-minute competition at 7’ with Burrell and Brown tying for second at 6’10”. All the jumpers wore quarter-inch spikes for footing on the Harlem Globetrotters’ sectionalized basketball court that was used for the approach. Bishop interviewed each of the athletes for the audience and each received a wall plaque-clock and billfold-both inscribed with the occasion and date.
- Bakersfield Californian sports page, July 11-12, 1968; conversation with Bob Covey, an official at the event, and BC’s track and field and cross country coach for 42-years