Sailors junior high jumper sets best mark in U.S. for current season

Falling, Jaasiel Torres said, feels like nothing until you land. Then, you can feel a number of different things.

Some landing mats are soft, encasing you like a hug from a long-lost friend when you drop in with a thud. You sink into them. They don’t give you a choice, but you’d choose to sink even if they had. Others are considerably less forgiving, and springy, and would like for you to get off them as quickly as possible, thank you very much.

On the day Torres, a junior at Sarasota, set the record high jump for a high school athlete nationally this season, the mat was of the former variety, and Torres was very grateful. It gave him a chance to catch his breath, to let himself register what he had just done, before his coaches, family, friends and teammates swarmed him on the Berkeley Prep track.  

"When you jump," Torres said, "when you go over the bar, once you get your shoulders and lower back over, if you can get the crunch in time and bring your feet up, you know you have it. When I was over it, I crunched. I felt that neither my calves nor my hips hit it. That's when I realized I had gotten over (the record height). It felt good."

It was Feb. 25. Torres had jumped 6 feet, 11 and a half inches off the ground, clearing the bar with a perfect Fosbury Flop. That was 10 inches higher than the second-place finisher at the invitational. Anyone watching him would know that Torres is not just a special athlete. He clearly has been training for this moment his entire life.

Except, that would not be a correct assumption. He hasn’t been working his whole life on the high jump. In fact, this is just Torres’ second year competing in track and field. He played baseball growing up, and tried basketball for a season, but stopped before seventh grade. He played no sports from then until last year. During his freshman year, he told himself and his friends repeatedly that he would go out for track, but he never did. He ended up kicking himself for that decision and redeemed himself as a sophomore. He didn’t want to be one of those kids stuck inside on the couch. He wanted to do something extracurricular. In the process, he may have found his calling.

Torres’ parents, Javier and Yudexis, always told him he would bounce around everywhere he went as a child. Why not try all the jumping events track has to offer? His first-ever attempt at a high jump cleared his own standing height: 5 feet, 10 inches. His coach, Ed Sera, took notice. He got Torres in the gym and put him to work, using squats and box jumps to increase his explosiveness. To improve his conditioning, Torres practiced with the school’s cross-country team. Torres’ improvement was steady and rapid. By the end of last season, Torres had cleared a 6 foot, 6 inch bar.

"I was competing against kids who had been doing this two or three years before me," Torres said. "I expected to be at the bottom of the rankings. I just put my best foot forward and did the best that I could. I definitely did not expect to be jumping this high (right now)."

This year, after an entire summer of weight room workouts and continued refinement of technique, Torres’ full potential has been unleashed, and he’s not done putting in work. He has goals for himself: First, to tie Florida’s all-time high school record of 7 feet, 2 inches. Then, to break it. He also competes in the triple jump, long jump and hurdles, but the high jump is his favorite, for obvious reasons. 

The most encouraging thing about Torres’ push for greatness is how nonchalant he is about what he’s accomplished thus far. The day he set the record was a day just like any other. He ate his pre-meet Italian sandwich. He joked with senior teammate Xakari Hawkins and chomped on a few Life Savers Gummies, which Torres called “essential.” He slid on his headband. He then warmed up, and he leaped. The next meet, at Booker on March 3, he did it all again. He’s not changing his routine, and he’s not satisfied. He wants to win a state title, and he wants to break historical records, not just set this year’s pace.

Torres said that he’s heard track and field is a much bigger deal in some other states, like California, than it is here. He’s not sure if he would like more attention, he said. It might be cool sometimes.

If he accomplishes all his goals, Torres will have to face a growing number of flashing cameras, whether he wants to or not.