Chesterton senior AJ Brandon clears 6-foot-8 in high jump at Portage indoor meet and sets his sights on Matt Nover's school record of 6-10

Tom Keegan
Onwardtrojans.com

Every sport is different.
Basketball: Chesterton sophomore Novea Brandon shoots a free throw late in a close game at home and it’s so quiet as to make the library sound like “America’s Loudest Rock Festival” by comparison.
Track and field: Novea’s brother AJ, a senior high jumper, readies himself for his third and final attempt at a personal-best 6-foot-8 jump and claps his hands above his head to trigger the crowd to do the same. The crowd obliges, including competitors who had exited at lower heights. Noisy enough now to let it rip, he rocks back, starts his narrowly angled sprint toward the bar, times his jump perfectly, clears the bar, and bounces off the landing sprints to teammate Nolan Johnston and they share a mid-air bump that starts with both of them doing that initial leg raise that high jumpers do.
Brandon executed the jump this afternoon at an indoor meet at Portage, where spikes aren’t used, a disadvantage to jumpers.
After he cleared 6-8, he requested the bar be moved to 6-10, where he made three attempt. For the second showed signs that suggested his legs were shot, fatigue had set in, so there seemed little point to attempt another. But that discounts the adrenaline factor that can come with third attempts. It can bring out the best in competitors.
Brandon’s spring off the floor was good enough to get it done, but he raised his head just a tad too soon on the other side of the bar and that brought up enough of the rest of his body that he clipped the bar after clearing it.
“I thought I had it,” Brandon said of his third try at 6-10. “I just hit it with my ankle at the end. It was beautiful. It feels great.”
Brandon had a feeling this would be a good day, but 6-8? Already?
Bradon cleared 6-4 in his first meet, 6-2 in his second. But it’s not as if he had to knock rust off because he’s been training year-round.
“Pretty much all offseason I was in the grind, trying to chase this record,” he said, adding that he expected to do better in his third meet than the first two. “I knew I was feeling bouncy. I knew the form was right. I thought I was maybe going to get 6-6, but I got over 6-8 and I was just like, ‘This is surreal.’”
Suddenly, a ho-hum indoor track meet turned into a celebration of a notable feat, especially so early in the year.
The word Brandon used: “surreal,” aptly captures his brief high jumping career. He didn’t jump the first two years of high school and at the urging of friends and near the end of his junior season, his first as a high jumper, he cleared 6-7 at the regional. That’s when he first mentioned the school record. He’ll keep mentioning it.
After watching the video, Brandon convinced himself that he will clear 7 feet in the spring. But before gunning for that height, he has a different one in mind: 6-10-1/4, which would break Chesterton Hall of Famer Matt Nover’s school record of 6-10.
“Even if it’s 6-10-1/4, I want to get that record before I leave Chesterton,” Brandon said at the end of his day.
He explained why he entered the competition at 6 feet: “All offseason I was practicing 6 and above, and last year I was coming in at 5-10, so I just felt like 6 was a good height to come in at today.”
It proved a wise choice. He and Nolan Johnston, another former basketball player, both will jump Saturday at The Hoosier State Relays at the Indiana Farm Bureau Fall Creek Pavilion in Indianapolis on Saturday, March 29.
Johnston, even newer to high jumping than Brandon, already has cleared 6-4.