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The Flop the Flop

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The Flop the Flop Rick Barry - Kareem The Dream Abdul Jabbar - Granny Style Skyhook Style THETHE FLOPFLOP Sadaharu Oh - Flamingo Style Radically new forms in sports, especially those initiated by athletes trying to find a competitive edge, occasionally lead to dominant individuals, yet very few of these techniques actually take hold with the community at large or remain in use for long periods Sam Snead - of time. Where are the imitators, the copiers who take these Croquet Style newfound techniques, make them their own and improve upon them? Why have these forms not succeeded? Why has a qualitative, stylistic change not been adopted even with proven quantitative success? Extremely successful athletes Hall-of-Famers in numerous sports have utilized now mostly defunct techniques hardly emulated even in their time: Ty Cobb, Sadaharu Oh, and Dennis Eckersley in baseball; Rick Barry and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in basketball; and Sam Snead in golf.1 Two revolutionary transformations in athletics, the one handed shot in basketball popularized by Hank Luisetti, and the Fosbury Flop in high jump, invented by Dick Fosbury are rare exceptions. The Flop and the Shot were radical in form and not just strategy (i.e. the forward pass in football or the drop-shot in tennis) and entirely transformed their sports, transcending their individual inventors. Focusing intently on the Fosbury Flop, I would argue that the Flop was born and successfully integrated itself into mainstream sports due to the social climate within which it occurred as well as its explosive entrance Dick Fosbury - onto the sporting scene.2 Free Style Disco Dennis Eckersley - Submarine Style Ty Cobb - Slap Style ATHLETICATHLETIC INNOVATIONINNOVATION 1) This particular list of athletes, save that of Dennis Eckersley, is owed, in part, to Bruce Andersons article Out of Play from Attaché US Airways Online Magazine. http://www.attachemag.com/ 2) Since my interest is to prove why the Flop has been successful rather than why the others have not, let me generally say that each particular athlete has not been extensively emulated because the introduction of their particular method did not arrive with any sort of abruptness or during a time of social upheaval (those reasons I will employ for the Flop). 2110 ?? Feet First Scissors Roll 2000 Javier Sotomayor 1990 Javier Sotomayor 1980 Vladi Yashchenko crease 1968-1988 1970 Valeriy Brumel REVOLUTION .30 per year in­ 1968 Fosbury Flop D. Fosbury Natural Physical 2.24m Calisthenic Somatic 1960 Juriy Stepanov As is common for residents of Oregon, Dick Fosbury found himself a track and field athlete by grade school.3 A high jumper, Technical Kinesthetic he was taught the complicated straddle technique where strong 1950 Lester Steers legs and jumping ability is a definite requirement. Forefronted by Tactical Valeriy Brumel,4 an exceptional leaper, the straddle requires the Stragegic jumper to directly approach the bar and forcefully rocket one leg 1940 Melvin Walker 1941 Straddle skyward, raising the upright body over the bar at the apogee of the L. Steers jump trajectory. Tall and thin and unable to master the complicated 2.11m straddle compounded by a lack of natural leg strength, Fosbury 1930 Harold Osborn pursued a more intuitive form of jumping following a modified scissors style like one would use to jump over a low fence.5 As the heights that Fosbury was to clear became higher and higher, 1920 Clinton Larson crease 1880-1988 the more prone (closer to 90 degrees to the bar) he became, leaning EVOLUTION .14 per year in­ back so his body cleared the bar as his legs kicked over. To arrive Straddle 1912 Western Roll parallel to the bar so that the most of his body could pass over at 1910 Michael Sweeney once, Fosbury developed a running diagonal approach. The G. Horine 2.00m diagonal trajectory of his body supplying greater centrifugal force coupled with his supine position to the ground, lowering his center 1900 Michael Sweeney of gravity sometimes below the bar, effectively required less Work. (Moving along a diagonal vector, up stairs for example, requires 1895 Scissors M. Sweeney much less Work over time than a perpendicular approach. And 1890 William Byrd-Page 1.97m since time is not a factor in the high jump and the landing point Mental can be predicted based on the launching point, less Work is all that Euphoric matters.) With further explorations (the Flop is an evolution rather 1880 Marshall Brooks than a discovery) into lift and rotation and changes in collegiate and Olympic regulations,6 Fosburys style became profoundly 1874 Feet First headfirst and backward. This new technique allowed him to improve 1870 Thomas G. Little M. Brooks his personal best by 15 to 6-7 in 1965. The Flop was dawning. 1.80m Flop 1860 Robert H.L. Burton 1850 Hanmer Web TECHNICALTECHNICAL HISTORYHISTORY 3) Oregon is home to many successful track and field athletes including Steve Prefontaine and Phil Knight. 1840 Richard Armstrong 4) Valeriy Brumel, Russian high jumper, held the world record Fosbury failed to beat in 1968. Set in 1963 at 7-5¾ Brumels potential was cut short by a motorcycle accident. 1830 Thomas Anderson 5) Blount, Roy Jr. Being Backward Gets Results. Sports Illustrated, Feb. 10, 1969 6) Prior to 1935, Olympic regulations prohibited high jumpers from leading with their head. The 1968 Summer Olympics would mark 245.0cm 242.5cm 240.0cm 237.5cm 235.0cm 232.5cm 230.0cm 227.5cm 225.0cm 222.5cm 220.0cm 217.5cm 215.0cm 212.5cm 210.0cm 207.5cm 205.0cm 202.5cm 200.0cm 197.5cm 195.0cm 192.5cm 190.0cm 187.5cm 185.0cm 182.5cm 180.0cm 177.5cm 175.0cm 172.5cm 170.0cm 167.5cm 165.0cm 162.5cm 160.0cm 157.5cm the first time foam-filled mats were used in the landing pits. TIMELINE 1968 My mind knew that I wanted to achieve Boston Five Indicted on Conspiracy the purpose and my January body responded. D.F. -THE HINDU Youth International Party Founded N. Korea Captures USS Pueblo N. Vietnamese Launch Tet Offensive R. M. Nixon Declares Candidacy February Haleyville, AL, First 9-1-1 Service S. Vietnam Recaptures Hue March Fosbury Pre 1968 Fosbury Post 1968 McCarthy Garners 40% in NH Primary My Lai Massacre Fosbury, next at Oregon State, spent more time struggling Novotny Resigns - Prague Spring with the straddle at the request of his coaches, yet continued a LBJ Will Not Seek Reelection personal pursuit of the Flop. The OSU coaching staff pushed the April MLK Jr. Assassinated - Riots Ensue traditional style on Fosbury, until one day he cleared 6-6 by nearly 24k Reserves Called to 2yr Duty six inches with the Flop. Fosbury forsook the straddle for good, did Student Occupation - Columbia U 6'10" in his sophomore year and then, last season (1968), as a junior, became the most consistent seven-footer in the nation.5 He Student Revolts Begin in Paris made the 1968 Olympic team with a personal best of 7-3 and May Bloody Monday in Paris Revolts US & N. Vietnames Begin Peace Talks shocked the world with his 7-4 ¼ jump (in his third attempt) at the Olympics which amounted to a gold medal and Olympic record. 9 Million Workers on Strike in Paris Fosbury floundered just as fast as he peaked, (although he won Robert F. Kennedy Assassinated the NCAA title in 1969, he never again reached his Olympic height, June and failed to make the Olympic team in 1972) but the Flop has lived on. 50k March in Poor Peoples Campaign Fosburys pursuit of the Flop was personal. Irwin Ungers in his book Turning Point would say that his pursuit was political.7 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty Signed Over the course of five years, as he perfected the Flop, Fosbury July exercised creative freedom8 (freedom being the most important concept of the late 1960s, née since the Enlightenment) in finding the most comfortable fit for his body as well as his mind, coming to fruition in 1968. Fosbury, having traded his civil engineering August R. M. Nixon Nominated for President studies for Eastern religion and the teachings of Confucius and Lao- tzu, said in his 1969 interview with Sports Illustrated, "I didn't change Soviet Union Invades Czechoslovakia my style. It changed inside me." This was a common theme during Violence at Chicago Natl Convention the late 1960s, especially the explosive year of 1968). Fosbury sought an internal resolution to an external problem to which many September Womens Lib Targets Miss America in the late 1960s turned to drugs (Fosbury turned to athletics). In accordance with Fosburys physical feat, he used the technique of physching himself up, relatively new at the time. Positive thinking Violent Student Protests in Mexico City stirred his adrenaline glands and helped him achieve his goal. October Apollo 7 is Launched R.D. Fosbury Wins Gold XIX Olympiad LBJ Halts All Bombing in N. Vietnam Nixon Elected by Smallest Margin WHYWHY THETHE FLOP?FLOP? 7) See chapter 6 The Personal Is Political' November 8) This statement is entirely owed to George Grant in his work A Natl Turn in Your Draft Card Day Platitude of 1969. December Apollo 8 is Launched 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31.
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