UL Olympian: Hollis Conway

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It is entirely fitting that Shreveport's Hollis Conway should be inducted into the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame in an Olympic year, since the Olympics did so much to shape his record-setting high jump career.

Conway, a six-time All-American while competing for the University of Louisiana (then University of Southwestern Louisiana), won a silver medal in the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul, South Korea, a bronze in the 1992 games in Barcelona, Spain, and came back from a career-threatening injury to barely miss a third spot on the U.S. Olympic Team that would have sent him to Atlanta in 1996.

"The first thing that pops into my mind is the (1988) Olympic Trials," Conway said. "Looking back on it, I was naive. I didn't know what the Olympics meant.

"I won the Trials (at 7-8 1/2), but I didn't know what that meant. I went to Seoul and had a great time. I went to the different events, did the ceremonies. There was no pressure. It was fun. Wherever I ended up was where I ended up."

Conway, then a USL sophomore, ended up with the silver by producing a U.S. collegiate record 7-8 3/4. Only the USSR's Guennadi Avdeenko jumped higher, at 7-9 3/4.

"Jimmy (Howard) came over to me and said, 'I think you just got silver.' I literally went, jumped, and they told me I got second."

His career would take off after Seoul.

Conway had used the Seoul performance to blossom in 1989, twice setting the American record in the high jump, winning the NCAA Outdoor Championships at 7-9 3/4 and the U.S. Olympic Festival at 7-10.

He had seven jumps of 7-8 or better, swept the U.S. Indoor and Outdoor titles and Goodwill Games and entered 1990 ranked No. 1 in the world.

On the way to six NCAA All-America honors, Conway began 1991 by winning the World Indoor Championships in Seville, Spain, with an American indoor record 7-10 1/2. He defended his U.S. Outdoor title, won the 1991 World University Games and placed third in the Pan American Games and World Outdoor Championships.

He retired at the 2000 Drake Relays, ranking as the only American to win two medals in Olympic high jump competition.

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Conway began naive

Hollis Conway doesn’t remember much of the pomp and pageantry that surrounds the Olympic Games.

But ask him about the high jump action at either of his Olympic journeys, and he can conjure up virtually every detail.

“I went there with the purpose of winning a medal, and not getting caught up in what was going on around me,” said Conway, the only American in history to win two Olympic high jump medals. “I remember the competition at both places ... every jump.”

Conway was only a sophomore in college at UL Lafayette when he qualified for the U.S. Olympic Team for the Games of the XXIV Olympiad in Seoul, Korea. That was before he began his streak of being ranked first in the U.S. in the high jump for seven straight years.

With no expectations, he jumped a personal-best 7-8 3/4 in Seoul to win the silver medal. Four years later, he added a bronze medal to his collection when he cleared 7-8 in Barcelona, Spain in the XXV Olympiad.

“I didn’t realize what was going on at the time,” Conway said. “I didn’t know how important it was. I was just out there jumping and having fun. I had no idea what the Olympics meant or what winning a medal meant.”

The six-time All-American at then-USL was an international neophyte when he won the U.S. Trials in 1988, and found himself suddenly thrust into the world’s track and field spotlight. And, while most of the world’s athletes had tunnel-vision for their events, Conway made the rounds in Seoul throughout the Games.

“I had two or three meets in Europe in 1987, and that was about it,” he said. “There were so many good jumpers in the U.S. then. I won at the Trials when I wasn’t expected to, and I went to Seoul and had a great time.

“I went to watch the gymnastics and seeing all the girls that looked like they were five or six years old. Brad Gilbert gave me some tickets and I went and watched him play tennis.”

One excursion was to a barbecue open to members of the U.S. team, one held at the military base near the demilitarized zone that separated North and South Korea.

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Dan McDonald
dmcdonald@lafayette.gannett.com

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NORMAL — At the end of one of the world’s greatest high jumping careers, Hollis Conway felt like a failure. He hadn’t met his goals of setting a world record nor had he won an Olympic gold medal. Now five years removed from his last competition, Conway sees he accomplished enough to make people listen. They were listening to the two-time Olympic medalist at the Brown Ballroom in Illinois State’s Bone Student Center Tuesday night during the annual Fellowship of Christian Athletes Home Team Banquet, a fundraiser for the FCA’s ministry in the north-central Illinois region. “I want them to understand there are millions of people like me who could not have made it without people who cared and got involved,” said Conway, who grew up poor in Shreveport, La. Conway, 39, is a motivational speaker and the Area Director for the Northeastern Louisiana Fellowship of Christian Athletes based in West Monroe, La. The 1988 Olympic silver medalist and 1992 bronze medalist spoke at 38 events last year at places ranging from schools and churches to corporations. “If you have all success, kids who struggle can’t identify with you,” Conway said. “If you have some failures and disappointments, they can identify with you in the process of pursuing their success.” Conway, who has a wife and three daughters, struggled financially and emotionally when his 10-year professional track career ended. “There was a three- or four-year period where I sat around and I had no idea who I was,” said the University of Louisiana graduate. “Even though I graduated from college and everything, my pursuit was athletics. I had to figure out, ‘What am I good for? All I’ve ever been is an athlete.’” Conway found the answer when he heard a preacher say “whatever you need to be successful, you already have inside of you.” “The more I look in there, the more I find, but it takes the same work (as pro track),” he said. Conway worked his way to national prominence early in his college career, winning the 1988 NCAA indoor title as a sophomore. He set the still-standing collegiate record of 7 feet, 9¼ inches in 1989. The rest of the story By Randy Sharer rsharer@pantagraph.com

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As a scrawny freshman at Fair Park High School, Hollis Conway was really bad at football and not much better at basketball. Conway had little success trying to make it on the school's track team, too. His first attempt at the high jump, with the bar set an inch below qualifying standards for the varsity squad, went about as badly as everything else. "I hit the bar and it knocked the wind out of me," Conway said. "But even on the ground, with everyone laughing at me, I saw myself as being successful at this someday." No kidding: Conway would go on to earn a silver medal at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, South Korea. That improbable six-year journey from schoolboy dud to Olympic medalist taught him a valuable lesson that he shared again Sunday at a special prayer service for the Bossier high school seniors. "Your vision has to be bigger than your circumstances," Conway said. "If you aim at nothing, you'll hit it every time." A native of Shreveport and the only American to win two Olympic medals in the high jump -- he earned a bronze in the '92 Barcelona Games, Conway was the keynote speaker at a baccalaureate for graduating seniors from the six Bossier Parish high schools. The rest of the story By Joel Anderson joelanderson@gannett.com

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Hollis Conway hasn't competed in the high jump in five years. Yet Conway, a two-time Olympic medalist, has other bars to surpass these days. He is a motivational speaker who has his own company, Overcoming Obstacles, Inc. Conway, a former star at Fair Park High School and the University of Southwestern Louisiana, has seen his share of obstacles. Some of those very obstacles led him to where he is today. "I had some major injuries," Conway recalled prior to speaking at this week's Fellowship of Christian Athletes' Founder's Banquet in Bossier City. "In 1995, I completely ruptured my patella tendon. In '96, I completely ruptured my Achilles tendon. I came back in '97, '98, '99, just jumping a little bit. I was jumping 7-5, but not at that level. "In the midst of those years, trying to compete, finances went away because of the injuries and I was away from the sport. I spent three or four years trying to figure out who I was and what was my purpose in life. I got into ministry and started with FCA along with that I was working at the University of Louisiana-Lafayette, counseling athletes." He eventually ended up in Monroe where he worked with the FCA and then began his own company. During that late 1990s period when he was searching, he found his purpose in life. The rest of the story