THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, June 17, 1996 TAG: 9606170147
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY TOM ROBINSON, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ATLANTA LENGTH: 75 lines
On Father's Day morning, Lawrence Cleveland Johnson of Chesapeake welcomed into his wardrobe two new shirts, gifts from his teenaged sons Corey and Ryan.
On Father's Day night, he welcomed into his family one United States Olympian - the finest present his oldest son, Lawrence Clayton Johnson, could give.
The new king of American pole vaulters, barely 22 with the world at his feet, Johnson didn't just make his daddy one proud former track man Sunday. His winning performance at the U.S. Olympic Track and Field Trials also added a taste of history to Johnson's sky's-the-limit profile.
The youngest of the 12 finalists, Johnson cleared 19 feet 1/4-inch, with no misses in four jumps, to win the event and make the first of what should be a string of Olympic teams over the next decade.
The leap was well short of the national record - 19 feet 7 1/2 inches - he set last month, just before he captured his second NCAA outdoor championship. After the final three were determined, Johnson was the only vaulter who continued jumping, but he missed all three attempts at 19-4 1/4.
``I was very rough technically,'' Johnson said, though he pronounced himself on pace to ``pursue the gold medal at the Summer Games. ... I still have more potential. It's good that even though I had a bad day, I could still clear 19 feet.''
What is bound to work Johnson into the national consciousness, though, now and through the Olympics, is that Johnson became the first black vaulter to make a U.S. Olympic team.
``That's always good to be, I guess, a mold-breaker,'' said Johnson, who starred for two years at Great Bridge. ``I really think that the greater satisfaction will come when I'm recognized not as the best black pole vaulter in the world but as the best pole vaulter in the world.''
Funny. Eight years ago, the son intended to run the hurdles at Norfolk's Lake Taylor High School, just like his dad did at Norfolk State. The father was a solid 440-yard hurdler, good enough to win a CIAA Northern Division championship, but never in a class to dream of national glory.
The son, though, who regularly frightened the father by turning no-hands flips, was steered toward the pole vault by Lake Taylor coach Floyd Conley, who saw the same flips and recognized a fearlessness critical to pole vaulters.
``He used to look at a lot of my high school medals and newspaper clippings. It's why he wanted to run track originally,'' the father, a 46-year-old contractor, said Sunday from Chesapeake. ``How he ever got into the pole vault, that's something I'll never know.
``I thought it was a kind of crazy idea, especially during that time. There weren't many African-Americans that were pole vaulters. They seemed to dominate the sprints. And I thought Lawrence had a great ability to be a good quarter-miler. But I left it to his own free will what he wanted to do.''
The father could not make it to Atlanta on Sunday. So he spent the day at home ``very nervously awaiting some information,'' with his wife of 25 years, Teena, his other sons and 25-year-old daughter Laria, on a visit home from the Army.
The son, as he does often, called early on the family's 800 number to wish the father a happy day and assure him that his mission was clear.
``I told him, `Right now, all you want to do is qualify,' '' the father said. ``He said, `No, Dad. Win.' ''
And so he did. Now, Olympic gold could be his for the grabbing.
``If worse comes to worst, he's still my hero,'' the father said. ``He went through the same door as me, but he skyrocketed.
``I don't know if you can ever say he followed my footsteps. If he did, he covered them with much bigger steps.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
The youngest of the finalists, Lawrence Johnson cleared 19 feet
1/4-inch with no misses in four jumps to win the event.
ASSOCIATED PRESS photo
Lawrence Johnson sails toward a happy landing after clearing 19
feet, 1/4 inch. When told earlier by his dad that he just needed to
qualify at the Olympic Trials, he responded: ``No, Dad. Win.'' by CNB