The Wizard of Foz

Dick Fosbury’s One-Man High-Jump Revolution

De: Bob Welch

Narrado por: Grover Gardner

In 1968, perhaps the finest US Olympic men’s track-and-field team ever stirred the world in unprecedented ways, among them the victory stand black rights protest by Tommie Smith and John Carlos in Mexico City. But in competition no single athlete mirrored the free-thinking 1960s better than Dick Fosbury, a failed prep high jumper who invented an offbeat style that ultimately won him a gold medal and revolutionized the event. No jumpers today use any other style than his.

Yet few know the struggles Fosbury endured to achieve his success, as he and Bob Welch recount in The Wizard of Foz. From the tragic death of a younger brother to nearly dying himself, from flunking out of college to nearly being drafted, Fosbury cleared far more obstacles than a high-jump bar. And even when he had seemingly made the US Olympic Team, he faced a “redo” that nobody saw coming.

This book tells a story of loss, survival, and triumph, twined in a person (Fosbury), a time (the 1960s), and a place (a fantasy-like Olympic Trials venue high in the Sierra Nevada) clearly made for each other. It is a story of a young man who refused to listen to those who laughed at him, those who doubted him, and those who tried to make him someone he was not.

©2018 Bob Welch and Dick Fosbury (P)2022 Blackstone Publishing

Good Story that needs editing

Bob Welch is an exceptional talent. His books are the best of the best and uplifting. However this one misses the mark a bit. Though a great story about surprise high jumper Dick Fozbury, the book constantly meanders into the turmoil of the 60’s and the perpetual topic of racism, Vietnam (ant-Vietnam), etc. It’s like a broken record throughout three book. To mention it once would be acceptable to frame the storyline, but not as the storyline with Fozbury painted in for background. The constant browbeating gets exhausting. Just once in this day and age it would be refreshing to not get a lecture the majority of the time. Grover Gardner makes from book as he always does.