Noji's record high jump of 7-4-1/2 was 20 years ago
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Q: This is the 20th anniversary of Rick Noji's amazing high jump of 7 feet, 4-1/2 inches when he was a junior at Franklin High School. What is Noji doing these days?
A: Noji, 36, is vice president of Compass Communications, a Seattle computer and Internet-services firm started by two friends from his boyhood days. Noji had been running his family's company, Columbia Greenhouse, in Kent but higher costs and shrinking profit margins led to the difficult decision in 2002 to close the business and sell the property to Kent.
Noji set the state high-jump record in the 1984 Metro League meet at Husky Stadium.
"It was a day that changed my life," he said.
Noji looked like an unlikely phenom entering the stadium. He was only 5 feet, 8 inches and carried a Slurpee in one hand and Ding Dongs in the other.
"I've always liked junk food," he confessed the other day, looking out the window from a 32nd-floor conference room.
Noji never cleared 7-4-1/2 again in high school, but he never tried. He set the bar at 7-6-1/2 in pursuit of a national mark.
"I came close a couple times," he said.
Although Noji wasn't tall, he was 120 pounds of fast-twitch muscles in high school, and that made him fast and explosive. He was a superb sprinter, and in 1985 he won the 200 meters at the state meet in 21.52 seconds. In the same meet, he won the high jump at 7 feet and the long jump at 23-1-1/4.
Noji went on to star at the University of Washington (he is in the Husky Hall of Fame), and he jumped competitively through the 1996 Olympic Trials. He was on various U.S. national teams, including three that competed in the world championships. He was eighth at the world meet in 1993 and was ranked among the top-10 high-jumpers on the planet at a time when there was an abundance of talented leapers.
About the only U.S. team he never made was an Olympic team.
His best high jump was 7-7.
Noji hasn't competed since 1996, but admits he misses the sensation of "soaring over the bar."
"You can't beat that feeling," he said. He is flirting with the idea of entering some low-key competitions just for fun.
Noji has some couch potato in him and his major hobby has been golf, where he carries a respectable handicap index of 10.4. His wife, Lisa, a Lake Washington High School graduate who co-owns a hair salon, has been the serious exerciser in recent years. The couple lives in West Seattle.
The high jump will be one of the most anticipated events at this week's state track meet in Pasco because Roosevelt senior Norris Frederick has cleared 7-1. Frederick has heard a lot about Noji but never has met him.
"I hope I do," he said.
That will be nice for Frederick, but those of us who got to see Noji compete got the real treat.
Q: I realize that high-school coaches keep a close eye on athletic talent in their junior-high and even grade-school feeder systems. At what grade level do high-school basketball and football coaches think they have a good "feel" for the talent level of a class?
A: We went to Mercer Island for our answer because it's an island where upcoming classes are easier to track.
Mercer Island basketball coach Ed Pepple said he usually has a good feel for the talent in a class in fifth grade. He said it didn't used to be that early but said "kids are starting earlier."
Islanders football coach Dick Nicholl said, "We have a pretty good handle by the seventh or eighth grade." Nicholl added, "Football is different because of the nature of the sport." (One example: Big boys that lack coordination early often develop into useful high-school football players.)
Projecting athletic success for girls is trickier because their bodies can change so much.
Blair Rasmussen, the former NBA player who recently stepped down as Mercer Island girls coach, said, "I'm still trying to figure it out. ... Girls change so much. They fill out differently."
However, a former Seattle high-school coach who coached in select-team programs for years told us that she considers seventh grade as the defining year.
"In the seventh grade, you could tell their quickness, desire and drive," the coach said. "You can sense which kids want to take their game to the next level. They have that gleam in their eye and if they have skills, you know they are going to work and get better."
Q: This seems to have been one of the best years as far as spring-sports weather in memory. Just how good has it been?
A: Meteorologist Jeff Renner of KING-TV confirms that it has been exceptional. From March 15 to May 15 (the first day of games until the day all but playoffteams were done), Seattle got 2.54 inches of rain, much of which fell in the last week of March. That left us 2.8 inches below normal for the two-month period. In April, only .65 inches of rain fell and only .51 inches in the first 15 days of May.
One of the worst springs was 2002. That was the year the Seattle Christian fast-pitch team had nine rainouts in a row against local opponents in their first month of competition. On one of the rare days the weather was decent, the umpires didn't show up.
Have a question about high-school sports? Craig Smith will find the answer every Tuesday in The Times. Ask your question in one of the following ways: Voice mail (206-464-8279), snail mail (Craig Smith, Seattle Times Sports, P.O. Box 70, Seattle, WA 98111) or e-mail csmith@seattletimes.com