| NEWS |
  
|
| FEATURES |
| ENTERTAINMENT |
  
|
| COLUMNS |
     |
| CONTACT US |
|
| HOW TO SUBMIT |
|
|
| BACK ISSUES |
|
|
 (Photo courtesy of Princeton's Office of Athletic Communications) caption:
|
Numbers Add Up for Princeton Track Great Harris In Making U.S. Olympic Track Team in High Jump
By Bill Alden
As a Princeton University graduate with a degree in mechanical/aerospace engineering, Tora Harris has a pretty good head for numbers.
But in the heat of the high jump competition at the U.S. Olympic track and field trials earlier this month, Harris needed some help to make sure that the numbers added up to him qualifying to make the U.S. squad.
"It was almost disbelief," said Harris as he reflected on his 7'5 jump that earned him a spot at the Athens Summer Games next month. "I asked the officials over and over again about the calculations. I had visualized the scenario but then you come back to reality, it's still hard to believe."
Harris, a 2002 Princeton grad, acknowledges that his college experience played a major role in the numbers coming out right for him in his pursuit of his Olympic dream.
"A lot of my success is due to my college coaches," asserted Harris, who has been living and training in the Netherlands since graduating from college. "They really gave me the foundation."
For Harris, Princeton head men's track coach Fred Samara was particularly influential. "Coach Samara helped me a lot with the mental aspect of the sport," said Harris of his coach who was a 1976 Olympic decathlete in his own right.
"He's been to the Olympics, he knows the game. He knows what you have to do mentally at that level. He doesn't just know all the events, he knows how to get the athlete in the right frame of mind to do the technique when it counts. I e-mail him all the time. he's interested in what I'm doing, he provides mental support."
Although it almost seems like ancient history now, Harris' main athletic focus when he came to Princeton in 1998 was football. "I wanted to go to a school with good engineering," recalled Harris, a native of the Atlanta area who played outside linebacker in football.
"The choices came down to Princeton and Stanford. I sent the Princeton coaches my high school video and my dad suggested that I throw in some high school high jumping footage. Fred Samara called me a day after the tape got to Princeton."
Despite Samara's interest, Harris went ahead with his plan to play football and had to face a setback right away. "On the first day of practice, I turned my ankle and I was out for about six weeks," remembered Harris.
"I did make the traveling squad and end up getting on the field. I felt I was one of the fastest players on the team but in football you don't always get a chance to show your abilities."
The 6'3 Harris didn't have any problem displaying his abilities once winter track season rolled around his freshman year. "I got my first high jump shoes and within two meets I had qualified for the NCAA," said Harris.
"I won the Ivy League Heptagonal championship my freshman year. I ended up telling the football coaches that I was quitting the team because I had decided to train for the Olympics."
While that goal may have seemed audacious at the time, Harris put together the college career to justify such an aspiration. He won two NCAA high jump titles, eight Hep crowns and a Penn Relays title. He did take a year off from Princeton to train for the 2000 Olympic trials where he placed seventh, hampered by an injured foot.
In 2001, Harris finished third at the World University Games in Beijing and he capped his Princeton career by soaring for a personal best of 7'7 at his last outdoor Heps meet before taking the NCAA outdoor crown.
For Harris, his engineering work in the classroom complemented his efforts on the track. "I'd try to approach the event like an engineer," explained Harris, who spent much of his practice time at Princeton studying tapes and working on the runway perfecting the arc of his takeoff.
"I'd look at a lot of video. I have a model of what I want the jump to be. I try to figure out every aspect of the sport and control everything I can control."
Juggling the demands of being a world class athlete and an engineering major did stretch Harris to the limit at times. "I'd be sitting in a wind tunnel lab at 3 a.m. in the morning with the Heps the next day," recalled Harris. "I'd think this is silly, I should be resting. But it was good, it created a discipline."
Harris will be relying on that discipline as he competes in Athens next month. "It doesn't come down to who can jump the highest but who can do it in three attempts," said Harris. "I feel I have a good grip on controlling myself and making adjustments."
After spending some time in Atlanta relaxing after the trials, Harris is heading back to Europe for the run-up to the Olympics.
"I will go to the Netherlands for one and a half to two weeks and then I have a meet in Sweden," added Harris, whose current training regimen includes karate-like drills and take-off simulation work. "My coaches said I need to work on a couple of little things that might give me another centimeter."
Just as important as the physical work, Harris will be working with his coaches to develop the focus to tune out the distractions of the circus-like atmosphere of the Olympics.
"My current coach had a jumper who went to the Sydney Games so he has an idea of how to deal with all of that," added Harris, who will compete in the opening round of his event on August 20 with the final slated for August 22.
"I won't be in the Olympic Village most of the time. I will come in for two or three days when I have to compete. The most important thing is the competition so I will miss out on some things."
Riding the high of his performance at the trials, Harris is determined to get the most out of the competition. "I'm there to make the finals, I'm really confident," said Harris, who plans to compete through the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.
"I've been in a lot of big meets. I was in a meet in Paris earlier this year with 60,000 people in the stands. I came to the trials thinking this was just another meet. If I just do what I did at the trials, I can make the finals. Of course, you never know."
If the numbers continue to add up like they have for Harris over the last few years, he could well find himself jumping for a medal in Athens.
