UL Olympian: Hollis Conway

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Hollis Conway 1986

When School record holder (at the time) Neil Guidry went down due to injury. Hollis Conway was called on to carry the torch for Louisiana. Carry he did, to new heights.

Hollis Conway 1987

A sophomore Hollis had the 7th best jump in the USA that year. The rest of his UL career he would finish no lower than 1st for any year.

Hollis Conway 1988
Olympic Silver Medalist

Hollis Conway 1989

In 88-1989, his last at the University of Louisiana, Hollis Conway improved the American record twice. He won the NCAA Outdoor Championships at 7-9 3/4 and the U.S. Olympic Festival at 7-10. In all Hollis Conway was a six-time NCAA All-American at the University of Louisiana.

1990 7-8.75 Hollis Conway (Nike Int)
1991 7-7.25 Hollis Conway (Nike Int)
1992 7-8.5 Hollis Conway (Nike Int)
(USATF)
1993 7-7 Hollis Conway (Nike Int)
1994 7-5.75 Hollis Conway (Reebok)

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HOLLIS CONWAY -- The top-ranked high jumper in the U.S. seven straight years from 1988-94, Conway is the only American ever to win two Olympic medals in the high jump. The University of Louisiana standout went 7-8 3/4 in the event at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, Korea, as a sophomore at UL (then USL), setting a U.S. collegiate record and earning a silver medal behind Gennadiy Avdeyenko of Russia. He followed that with a bronze medal in the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona after going 7-8 1/2 in winning the U.S. Olympic Trials that year. In 1989, Conway broke the American record twice in the high jump, winning the NCAA Outdoor Championships at 7-9 3/4 and the U.S. Olympic Festival at 7-10. That put him on track to earn the first of his two world No. 1 rankings in 1990 when he swept both the U.S. indoor and outdoor titles and won the Goodwill Games. He had 10 jumps of 7-8 or better that year. A six-time NCAA All-American at USL, Conway also was ranked No. 1 in the world in 1991 after beginning the year by winning the World Indoor Championship in Seville, Spain, with an American indoor record of 7-10 1/2. He defended his U.S. Outdoor championship and won the 1991 World University Games, while finishing third in the 1991 Pan American Games and World Outdoor Championships. He was ranked No. 3 in the world in 1992 and 1993. A midget by world-class high jump standards, the six-foot Conway still holds the distinction of ranking second in track and field history for jumping over his own height, with his best of 22 1/2 inches trailing only Franklin Jacobs' 23 1/4-inch mark. His national collegiate record of 7-9 3/4 at the 1989 NCAA Championships in Provo, Utah, still stands 15 years later, as does his national indoor collegiate mark of 7-9 1/4 at that year1s NCAA indoor meet. His 7-10 1/2 mark in winning the 1991 world indoor title is, 13 years later, still the best-ever by an American indoors and is tied for the all-time American best indoors or outdoors. In all, Conway won 10 USA Championship titles (five outdoor, five indoor) before announcing his retirement at the 2000 Drake Relays. He is a member of the Drake Relays Hall of Fame.

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Hollis Conway, the only American to win two Olympic medals in the high jump, will be inducted into the Drake Relays Athletes Hall of Fame during an April 22 banquet at the Knapp Center. The duo combined to win six Drake Relays individual titles with Conway sweeping the men's special invitational high jump titles in his inaugural two years of competing at the Drake Relays in 1993 and 1994.

The inductees increase membership into the Drake Relays Athletes Hall of Fame to 187. The Athletes Hall of Fame was established in 1959 during the Golden Anniversary of the Drake Relays with 72 charter members including Jesse Owens who was named the outstanding performer during the first half century of the Drake Relays. HOLLIS CONWAY

Conway was the top-ranked high jumper in the U.S. seven straight years from 1988-94. He won the 1992 U.S. Olympic Trials at 7-8 1/2 and tied for third in the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, Spain.

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Two veteran high jumpers announced their retirements at the recent Drake Relays.

Hollis Conway, a former American record holder, jumped 6-9 to tie for seventh at Drake, then said that was his final competition. Brown, the 1989 national champion, was entered in the Drake meet but did not compete. He also indicated that he has retired from competition.

A silver medalist at the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul, Conway also captured four U.S. outdoor titles during his career. The third place finisher at the 1991 IAAF World Outdoor Championships in Tokyo, he also placed sixth at the Worlds in 1993 at Stuttgart.

The sixth-place finisher at the U.S. Olympic Trials in Atlanta, Conway also captured the NCAA Outdoor title in 1989, and the World University Games crown in 1991. He was ranked #1 in the world by Track & Field News in 1990 and 1991. In addition, Conway was deemed the nation's best by T&FN on seven separate occasions.

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NATCHITOCHES — Six-time major league baseball All-Star Will Clark, Basketball Hall of Fame coach Leon Barmore and two-time Olympic medal-winning high jumper Hollis Conway are among seven men elected for induction this summer in the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame.

All-Pro football stars Albert Lewis, Neil Smith and Tony Sardisco join Alton "Red" Franklin, who coached Haynesville High School to a record 11 state football championships, in the 2004 Hall of Fame Induction Class announced by the Louisiana Sports Writers Association.

A record five inductees -- Barmore, Conway, Clark, Lewis and Smith -- were elected in their first year on the ballot. The group was chosen for induction by a 27-member Louisiana Sports Writers Association committee.

The Hall of Fame selection panel reviewed a 29-page ballot and considered 124 nominees in 23 different categories for this year's induction class.

The 2004 induction class will swell Hall of Fame membership to 229, an average of slightly more than four per year.

They will be formally enshrined on Saturday, June 26 in Natchitoches, home of the Hall of Fame, to culminate the June 24-26 "2004 Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame Induction Celebration."

Hollis Conway

The USA's top-ranked high jumper seven straight years from 1988-94, Conway is the only American ever to win two Olympic medals in the high jump. The Shreveport native went 7-8 3/4 in the event at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, Korea, as a sophomore at the University of Louisiana (then USL), setting a U.S. collegiate record and earning a silver medal behind Gennadiy Avdeyenko of Russia.

He followed that with a bronze medal in the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona after going 7-8 1/2 in winning the U.S. Olympic Trials that year. His national collegiate record of 7-9 3/4 at the 1989 NCAA Championships in Provo, Utah, still stands 15 years later, as does his national indoor collegiate mark of 7-9 1/4 at that year's NCAA indoor meet. His 7-10 1/2 mark in winning the 1991 world indoor title is, 13 years later, still the best-ever by an American indoors and is tied for the all-time American best indoors or outdoors. In all, Conway won 10 USA Championship titles (five outdoor, five indoor) before announcing his retirement at the 2000 Drake Relays. In 1989, Conway broke the American record twice in the high jump, winning the NCAA Outdoor Championships at 7-9 3/4 and the U.S. Olympic Festival at 7-10.

That put him on track to earn the first of his two world No. 1 rankings in 1990 when he swept both the U.S. indoor and outdoor titles and won the Goodwill Games. He had 10 jumps of 7-8 or better that year. A six-time NCAA All-American at USL, Conway also was ranked No. 1 in the world in 1991 after beginning the year by winning the World Indoor Championship in Seville, Spain, with an American indoor record of 7-10 1/2.

He defended his U.S. Outdoor championship and won the 1991 World University Games, while finishing third in the 1991 Pan American Games and World Outdoor Championships. He was ranked No. 3 in the world in 1992 and 1993.

A midget by world-class high jump standards, the six-foot Conway still holds the distinction of ranking second in track and field history for jumping over his own height, with his best of 22 1/2 inches trailing only Franklin Jacobs' 23 1/4-inch mark. He is a member of the Drake Relays Hall of Fame.

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For more info on the amazing jumping career of Hollis Conway after he left the University of Louisiana. Visit the raginpagin.com forum "After Louisiana" Hollis Conway

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More links with info on Hollis Conway.

All-Time U.S. Rankings — Men’s High Jump

CHAMPIONSHIP PERFORMANCES

Hollis Conway

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Conway deserving Hall of Fame honoree

Hollis Conway won a silver medal in the high jump at the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul, South Korea.

He captured a bronze at the 1992 Games in Barcelona, Spain, with his top jump actually equal to the best achieved by the winner and runner-up.

Conway came up short of qualifying for the U.S. Olympic Team in 1996, missing the opportunity to perform in Atlanta, and he never got another shot at the top step of the Olympic victory stand.

When it comes to life, though, it would be hard to find anyone who would deny Conway a gold medal.

Nowhere will you find someone more humble, or gracious, than Conway.

He was that way when he got to USL in 1985 from Fair Park High School in Shreveport, he was that way as a six-time Ragin’ Cajun All-American, he was that way when he was No. 1 in the world and he’s that way today.

Trouble is, that self-depreciation cost Conway dearly at a time when he could have built on fame.

“I had no identification,” said Conway, who will be inducted into the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame next weekend in Natchitoches. “Whenever I accomplished something, I was always looking forward. I lost who I was.

“I kept telling people that I was no one special. I had no idea what I’d accomplished.”

That worksheet included a national collegiate record 7-9 3/4, an NCAA indoor record 7-9 1/4 and a 7-10 1/2 world indoor-winning mark that remains the best-ever indoor mark by an American as well as tied for the best American effort, indoors or outdoors.

The slender 6-footer jumped 22 1/2 inches — nearly two feet — over his height.

That’s quite a lot considering humble beginnings.

“The first time I jumped in high school as a 5-5 freshman, I missed the pit and knocked the breath out of myself when I landed,” Conway said. “I recently did a name search for myself on Google, and I had done things that people only dream of doing. And I started to research the things I’d had to overcome.”

Conway remained a world-class performer despite tearing his Achilles tendon and his patellar tendon in separate injuries that cost him most of 1996 and 1997. He was back at 7-5 1/2 in 1998.

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Bruce Brown
bbrown@theadvertiser.com

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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