High School and College
Hayes attended Matthew Gilbert High School (now a middle school) in Jacksonville, where he was a backup halfback on the football team. The 1958 Gilbert High Panthers finished 12-0, winning the Florida Interscholastic Athletic Association black school state championship with a 14-7 victory over Dillard High School of Fort Lauderdale before more than 11,000 spectators. In times of segregation laws, their achievement went basically unnoticed, yet 50 years later they were recognized as one of the best teams in FHSAA history.
Hayes was also the first person to break six seconds in the 60 yard dash with his indoor world record of 5.9 seconds. While a student at Florida A&M in 1962, Hayes ran a new world record for the 100 yard dash with a time of 9.2 seconds. The next year he broke his own record with a time of 9.1, a record that would not be broken for eleven years (until Ivory Crockett ran a 9.0 in 1974). That same year, Hayes set the world best for 200 meters (20.5 seconds, although the time was never ratified) and ran the 220 yard dash in a time of 20.6 seconds (while running into an eight mph wind).
He was the AAU 100 yard dash champion three years running, from 1962–1964, and in 1964 was the NCAA champion in the 200 meter dash. He would miss part of his senior year in college because of his 1964 Olympic bid for U.S. Gold.
Read more about this topic: Bob Hayes
Famous quotes containing the words high, school and/or college:
“Have you ever been up in your plane at night, alone, somewhere, 20,000 feet above the ocean?... Did you ever hear music up there?... It’s the music a man’s spirit sings to his heart, when the earth’s far away and there isn’t any more fear. It’s the high, fine, beautiful sound of an earth-bound creature who grew wings and flew up high and looked straight into the face of the future. And caught, just for an instant, the unbelievable vision of a free man in a free world.”
—Dalton Trumbo (1905–1976)
“It’s a rare parent who can see his or her child clearly and objectively. At a school board meeting I attended . . . the only definition of a gifted child on which everyone in the audience could agree was “mine.””
—Jane Adams (20th century)
“The logical English train a scholar as they train an engineer. Oxford is Greek factory, as Wilton mills weave carpet, and Sheffield grinds steel. They know the use of a tutor, as they know the use of a horse; and they draw the greatest amount of benefit from both. The reading men are kept by hard walking, hard riding, and measured eating and drinking, at the top of their condition, and two days before the examination, do not work but lounge, ride, or run, to be fresh on the college doomsday.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)