Bob Beamon knows he’s getting old. The 75-year-old can’t play full-court basketball with his friends like he used to; he’s satisfied with taking just three or four shots and relaxing on the bench.
He’s taller than I expected, a bit frail, and wears circular glasses a half-inch thick. But the long jump Olympic record holder is full of life.
Maybe it’s because of Beamon’s appreciation for his life — he treats each moment as precious. He’s eager to take advantage of every one he has left.
The word “Beamonesque” is used to describe spectacular and superhuman moments in sports. One person who doesn’t like to be described by it, though, is the man it was named for — Bob Beamon, who broke the long jump world record by nearly two feet on a cool Mexico City night in 1968.
The world defines Beamon’s life by that jump. But for him, those six seconds on the runway were just like any other moment.
As I sat across from him in the University of Oregon student union, I asked him what he considers the greatest moment of his life.
He paused.
“I got up this morning and I went out and had some coffee,” he said. “That was pretty exciting. The coffee was incredible.”
Beamon marks his life by moments that he calls “peak experiences.” Maybe they’re moments of great success, euphoria, or happiness. He rattled some off: his charity work, raising his fist in protest on the Olympic podium, winning the gold medal.
But the problem with a moment is that it’s just that — a fleeting point in time that usually ends as quickly as it started.
Although winning gold was a peak experience for Beamon, reality quickly set in.
“I put [the medal] around my neck and I said, ‘What the hell am I going to do?’” Beamon remembered. “‘How do I make a living?’”
He worked a dozen different jobs after graduating — he started at a savings-and-loan company even though he was horrible at math and counting; he became a drug rehabilitation counselor to cope with his brother’s death from an overdose; there were times when he didn’t work and was just “stuck on stupid.”
Track and field fans sometimes think that athletes have a straight line to success and once you attain it, it will be there forever. Beamon stressed that he’s just like anyone else and that the path to success and happiness is a “magic carpet ride” — not even Olympic champions have it all figured out.
Beamon’s father died 15 days before he was born and his mother died from Tuberculosis when he was 11 months old.
“There was always something that was missing in my childhood,” Beamon said. “And I didn’t know why. These people that were saying that they were my parents were not hugging and kissing me like I saw some of my friends’ parents do.”
He grew up in Jamaica, Queens — he described his high school as a “jungle” where he was surrounded by murders, drug deals, and theft. As a young teen, he was forced into a gang.
“I was on my way to doing all of the wrong things,” he said. “I almost lived a life of crime for a while.”
Eventually, Beamon would jump his way out of Queens. He initially thought it would be through basketball like it was for so many other at-risk kids in New York City, but it was track and field that saved him. When he was arrested after a fight in high school, his grandmother convinced a judge to let him go because of his athletic talent. Maybe one day, she said, it would help her grandson make a name for himself.
Beamon’s long jump career started by a fluke. When he was 11, he ran in New York’s Police Athletic League and would lose every race at every distance. One day, a long jumper teammate was out sick, so he volunteered to jump — and won.
He got a medal and put it on his hat before he went to school. “I thought, ‘I know I’ll get me a girlfriend now,’” he said as he grinned cheekily.
Later in his life, founding a charity organization that raises millions of dollars for underprivileged youths, Beamon said he doesn’t think there’s a reason that he’s charitable — it just feels second nature to him.
Reflecting on his past helps him heal those wounds. He said he feels saner when he talks about the struggles in his life, rather than pushing them deep down. Confronting them keeps him strong, keeps him alert.
For Beamon, thinking about how he broke away from that side of the fence is a peak experience. Maybe through his charity, he’s creating similar peak experiences for the kids who are just like he was.
“That’s the best way to show who I am,” he said.
You can ask Beamon about his world record jump, or his philanthropy, or his activism. But his real passion is music.
“I’m truly in love with music. That’s who I am.”
Music was his first escape from his rocky childhood. On a Saturday morning when he was eight or nine, he woke up to the sound of legendary jazz drummer Milford Graves tapping out a Latin beat on some bongos outside of his apartment.
“This guy was going, ‘doo-doo-doo-doo, ra-ta-ta-ta,’” Beamon said excitedly, slapping imaginary bongo skins. He was so enamored with the rhythm of the percussion that he begged a family member to buy him a pair of bongos. While lighting a match to heat up and tie the skins around the top of the drums, he burned a hole through one of them.
So he just practiced with the other.
He never lost his love of music, even when focusing on the long jump. The high school All-American, he played percussion for a dance school in New York and met his current wife when she performed with the same group.
After breaking the world record, he would teach other jumpers to use their heartbeat as a drumbeat during their approach.
Beamon has over 8,000 vinyl records and “the whole works” of record players. He says he loves music from all around the world, although he doesn’t listen to 8-track cassette tapes on his boombox like he used to.
Even at 75, Beamon’s still pursuing his passion for music — he picked up the saxophone earlier this year.
“I’m just going through scales right now,” he said. “Probably by Christmas, I’ll play ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb.’”
Beamon’s road to the Olympics wasn’t easy. He started his college career at North Carolina A&T to be close to his grandmother, but after she died, he transferred to the University of Texas, El Paso.
He won the AAU games in 1967 competing for UTEP. A year later, they revoked his scholarship.
Just months before the Olympics, he and 10 other athletes boycotted a meet against BYU for the Mormon church’s exclusion of Black people. They were suspended from UTEP’s team and he was on his own until Mexico City.
But Beamon didn’t seem bitter about it. The protest ended up becoming a catalyst for change, with several other schools in the Western Athletic Conference creating Black Studies programs after uproar over what UTEP had done.
“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” he said. “We have to go through that to get to where we are today.”
Beamon said he learned an important lesson from the boycott and from his friends Tommie Smith and John Carlos, who were banned US Olympic Team after protesting for human rights at the 1968 Olympics: “Sometimes things come when you don’t want them, but they’re right on time.”
The suspension ended up being a blessing in disguise. Beamon’s rival and Olympic champion Ralph Boston reached out to coach him after he was suspended, and the two worked together for months until Mexico City.
“I trained in the snow; I trained in the rain. I was ready,” Beamon said.
He knew that it takes time to perfect your game. That’s how it was throughout his whole life. He wasn’t a natural at percussion or at athletics, or even at getting a job after he graduated. It took him three schools to get a degree — he finally graduated from Adelphi University in 1972 with a sociology degree.
Throughout his life, Beamon’s gratitude kept him going. Whatever pit he found himself in, he kept coming back out. Somehow, someway, he has a childlike fascination with life — and that keeps him going.
“I get up in the morning and I say, ‘Oh, I woke up,’” he said. “I’m not six feet under. I’m still existing.”
It’s important to learn yourself, he thinks. It seems like has a good grasp on himself — his emotions, his desires, his ambitions. But he’s never satisfied, always continuing to learn.
At 75, Beamon’s involvement in the sport of track and field is far from over. He’s currently working with a company called RunRite, which builds indoor tracks nationwide and is helping develop a new generation of track and field athletes through coaching and physical therapy.
He perked up from his chair when he started talking about RunRite. “Track and field is [one of] the most participated sports in the world,” he said, “and we are still not recognized around the world as being the biggest sport. We’ve got to create more opportunities for athletes.”
He told me about how RunRite is hiring coaches to train athletes for specific event groups like jumps from young ages. How it’s not only coaches, but physiology and educational development they’re supporting. How he wants to help create “a new generation of athletes.”
We could have talked for a few more hours. But Bob was on a schedule — he was hungry, and the little plates of fancy finger foods were slowly disappearing from the athlete hospitality center next door.
He thanked me and wished me a good life.
“When’s this article coming out?” he asked.
He approaches life like a long jump runway. He’s always looking forward.
