With a seven-foot jump, freshman Andrew Dodson broke a Michigan high jump record last year for a fifth-place rank in the nation. He is currently training for the upcoming season as a member of the Hillsdale College track and field team.
“He’s a great guy to have around,” said assistant head track and field coah Jeff Forino.“He has a lot of energy and is so focused, which really helps the rest of the team be focused as well.”
Dodson, who is from Frankenmuth, Mich., and attended Frankenmuth High School, said he first considered high jumping when he won a high jump competition in a middle school gym class. He did not become serious about it until the end of his freshman year of high school, when he finished second in the Tri-Valley Conference with a six-foot jump.
In his sophomore season, he was the state runner-up with a jump of six and a half feet. He went on to finish first in Michigan his junior year and rank in the top ten in the nation with a jump of six feet and nine inches.
“My senior season was the big one,” he said of the season in which his seven-foot jump earned him the indoor and outdoor state titles. He also ranked fifth in the country, broke the state high jumping record and was named Nike All-American.
Dodson said that winning the national title this year is a possibility.
Dodson had never incorporated weight lifting in his training before, and now that he has been training with the track team, he said he thinks increasing his jumping height is a definite possibility.
According to Dodson, one of his main goals is to qualify for the 2008 Olympic trials. He will need to jump seven feet and five inches in order to qualify.
“He’s got a lot of ability, and with adding weights to his training, I think he’s got a shot,” Forino said.
Dodson said that he liked the strong sense of community that he saw at Hillsdale.
“It’s the only school I visited where someone always holds the door for you,” he said.
About his sport Dodson added:
“It’s a cool feeling to walk into rooms and look at the door frame way above my head and be like, ‘Wow, I can jump over that.’”