New to High Jump, Duke heads to state

Despite spectacular dunks, it never dawned on Parkview basketball coach Keenan Temple until player Duke Abraham said he planned to try track.

"Once he said high jumping, I thought, 'Yea, that makes sense,'" Temple recalled. "When he said he was going to do that, I knew he'd be good."

In Abraham's first track practice, he cleared 6 feet, 2 inches, snapping heads of coach Matt Henson and assistant jump coach Richard King. Then, in his initial competition, at Parkview's Big Orange Relays, he tied for first at that height. After winning the Panther Need for Speed at 6-6, taking fourth at county at 6-2 and second at Parkview's Rumble in the Jungle at 6-4, Abraham further amazed himself by uncorking a 6-7 that won last week's Region 8-AAAAA meet by three inches.

"Somehow -- and I don't know how -- I just kept making it over the height," Abraham said. "It just came natural somehow."

At 2:30 p.m. Thursday at Jefferson's Memorial Stadium, Abraham will compete in the state meet. He comes in with the classification's second-highest jump, an inch behind rival Malcolm Davis of Norcross.

"I've been battling him since I started," Abraham said. "I want to beat him badly."

At 6-4 and 180 pounds, Abraham gained a reputation as one of Parkview's most dynamic dunkers in basketball. Temple recalls Abraham initially impressing him with a slam against Stone Mountain in a summer league game, then most memorably, stuffing over two Shiloh players during the regular season.

"When he decided he was going to dunk, you weren't going to stop him," Temple said. "He's a natural leaper."

When Abraham first approached the high-jump bar, though, "he looked like a basketball player trying to high jump," Henson said. "He didn't have any form. He was just a pure leaper."

After grooming on his approach and form with King, Abraham is looking increasingly more like a high jumper.

"Being a basketball player, the approach to the bar is not much different," Henson explained. "It's just about body control at that point."

For a guy who decided to try track somewhat on a whim, at his father's urging, many wonder how good Abraham could be if he discovered track years earlier. It's believed he might have done best at triple or long jump, but it's too late to experiment.

Abraham's father, Elliott, said Tommie Smith, winner of the 200 meters in the 1968 Olympics, said Duke could be highly competitive in horizontal jumping, or even as a sprinter. That's what the elder Abraham initially envisioned his son doing.

"He's pretty fast," Elliott Abraham said, "and when I suggested he try track, I thought he'd run something like the 100 or 200."

Abraham said he was only half serious when he haphazardly tried high jumping one day with fellow basketball player and trackster Marcus Meadows.

"I had no clue I was even going to do track... [and] I had no clue what I was doing," Abraham said.

"Jumping is what I do," he added. "I don't know why. I've just always been good at it."

Abraham said he's encouraged by Parkview girl Indiah Bell, whose school-record triple jump of 38-1  1/2 won region by nearly two feet. As she awaits her shot at state next week, Abraham feels similarly empowered.

"I wouldn't have believed you," he said of initial notions of winning state. "Now," he added, "it's very believable."

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