Princeton University Athletics
Bar Exam
November 21, 2001 | Men's Track and Field
Nov. 21, 2001
Tora Harris wakes up in the morning and can see his high jump approach. He sees the jump, he sees the landing, he sees the celebration afterwards.
Harris can see it all unfold before 9 a.m. Visualization is a tool that Harris uses in track and in life.
"I find that visualizing my competitions helps me relax," says Harris. "When I get to a meet, all that is left is following the script. You can do anything if you set you mind to it and if I can see myself doing it, I know that I will."
Harris saw himself earning international respect over the summer when he earned bronze at the World University Games in Beijing, China. He established himself as a true contender in the high jump with a leap of 7' 5" to become one of six Americans to medal at the Games. Not bad for a former college punter.
Before he became a punter, Harris was a multi-sport star at St. Atlanta High School in College Park, Ga., where he played football, basketball, baseball, soccer and ran track. His father was the football coach and although Harris excelled at each sport, it was football that his father believed would help pay for college. "My father felt that I could get a scholarship through football so he found a position that I was really good at," says Harris. "I became a punter and I really enjoyed it. I even went to punting camps."
Harris was good enough to be recruited by Division I football teams. Vanderbilt offered him a scholarship, but he had his heart set on Princeton. He sent the Princeton coaching staff his highlight tape and waited for a response.
"When I was making my football videotape, my dad told me to add some high jump footage to the end," says Harris. "I didn't want to, but I did."
Princeton track coach Fred Samara saw the tape and gave Harris a call. That year, Harris would jump 7' 0" in a high school meet, and he made the commitment to Princeton.
On the first day of football practice his freshman year, Harris twisted the ankle on his punting foot while kicking.
"My punts were pretty good, but my ankle was very swollen," says Harris. "I continued kicking, but it just hurt too bad."
The coaches saw his speed and made Harris an outside linebacker. By the time the season came around, Harris was on special teams and on the travel squad. Football season ended and Harris shifted gears to track and field.
"I played football and ran track in high school, so I figured I could do the same here," says Harris. "I felt that high jumping was very similar to punting, and within three weeks of practice I was jumping 7' 0"."
As a freshman, Harris became an All-America high jumper. He won both the indoor and outdoor Heptagonal championships, earning first-team All-Ivy honors in the process. He also set a freshman record with his 7' 3" at the outdoor IC4A championships. He decided to leave football prior to his sophomore year. He adapted well and qualified for the NCAA championships by matching his 7'3" at the indoor H-Y-P meet. He was honored as an outdoor All-America high jumper for the second straight year, breaking a 10-year-old school record with at fifth-place jump of 7' 4.25" at the outdoor NCAA championships.
Learning to balance class with sport would seem like a walk in the park after Harris' father passed away that summer. He took time off from Princeton and spent a year taking classes at Texas A&M. While there, Harris was just another student, not an athlete. He would, however, sneak onto the track and train for the Olympics almost every day.
He paid to enter the Texas A&M Invitational as an unattached athlete and qualified for the Olympic Trials. He cleared the opening height of 7' 3" and advanced to the finals. He fell short of making the Olympic team, but came away with great confidence.
"I look at my success and I know that I am not a super athlete," says Harris. "A lot of the guys on the international level can jump as high or higher."
Harris returned to Princeton looking for big wins his junior year, but a sore foot hampered his training. After the foot pain continued, a CT scan revealed a stress fracture. Harris was given a non-weight bearing boot to wear for six weeks. The doctors took a second look and the foot did not heal at all. Harris then underwent surgery in November where bone was grafted from the heal and two screws were placed in his foot. He would be in a cast for another six weeks and then he wore another boot for four weeks. To ensure the foot was healed, Harris was forbidden to run for an additional four weeks, and that left him no time to prepare for competition.
Instead of scrapping the indoor season, he decided to give jumping a try at the Princeton Invitational one week before the Heptagonal championships. He only jumped from the short approach (five steps) and cleared 7' 0". He then went to Boston for the indoor Heps and tied the meet record with a jump of 7' 3.25" using an approach he hadn't used all year.
"I wasn't training because of the injury, but I felt I could do it," says Harris. "Once you've done something and achieved success in it, you know what you need to do. I was either going to make that jump or not."
He earned All-America status with a fourth-place finish at the outdoor NCAA championships last season, and all three jumpers who placed ahead of Harris graduated.
Whether or not Harris becomes an NCAA champion this season is yet to be seen. His will leave Princeton with a high jump record, several Heptagonal championships and a degree in engineering.
"To me he is the epitome of a Princeton student," says Samara. "He has competed at the highest level of international athletics and in an extremely tough event he is world ranked. Above that, he will receive an exceptional degree in from Princeton."
-Tom Milijecki