By John Meyer | Denver Post
De Beque senior has already broken the Colorado high school record this spring and qualified for the Olympic Trials this summer
Motorists whizzing along Interstate 70 between Rifle and Grand Junction are unlikely to notice tiny De Beque, a tumbleweed town of fewer than 500 souls with only four students in the high school’s graduating class.
“If you blink, you’ll miss it,” says kindergarten teacher Leslie Weis, whose son, Scottie Vines, is bringing attention to the town with his exploits as a budding track and field sensation in the high jump.
The De Beque High School senior jumped 7 feet, 4.25 inches three weeks ago in the prestigious Texas Relays at the University of Texas, which automatically qualified him for this year’s U.S. Olympic Trials and surpassed the Colorado high school record of 7-4 set in 1991 by Matt Hemingway of Buena Vista High School. Thirteen years later, Hemingway won an Olympic silver medal.
Vines’ jump in Texas was ineligible to be recognized as a state high school record because it happened out of state, but he went to a meet two weeks later in Grand Junction and leaped 7-4.25 again to claim the record.
After clearing the bar, Vines pounded his chest and bellowed, “It’s mine!” Later he told Hemingway, who coached him the past two summers at his summer camp and continues to advise him, how it felt to claim his mentor’s 33-year-old record.
He was like, ‘I felt a little banged up, but I wanted it really bad. It really kind of irked me that they didn’t count the one in Texas.
Matt Hemminway
Currently the top-ranked under-20 high jumper in the world, Vines will compete on scholarship next year for the University of Colorado knowing he’s already leaped higher than the school’s high jump record. The CU record of 7-4 was set in 1975 by Bill Jankunis, who won the U.S. title a year later en route to making the 1976 U.S. Olympic team.
Hemingway was pulling for Vines to break his record and was happy to see it fall.
It’s time. I want somebody to strive beyond where I went. I had it a really, really long time.
Matt Hemmingway
Vines, who is 6-foot-4, has athletic genes. His mother played basketball at a Utah junior college. His father, also named Scottie Vines, won the Alabama high school 6A high jump title in 1998 with a jump of 6-10 — a height his son achieved as a sophomore — and played three seasons for the Detroit Lions at wide receiver.
He’s fast and he’s quick. He’s long jumped further than I did. He’s faster than I was at that age. He’s got the right frame. Obviously (he has) height, and those are the building blocks.
Matt Hemmingway
Vines also excelled at basketball, which was his first love until his elite high jump potential became obvious.
I have never seen a kid in high school play basketball like he does. He can take three dribbles the entire length of the court and slam it. He’s all legs and arms. Literally, three dribbles and he’s dunking the basketball.
Scottie Vines’ mother Leslie Weis
De Beque calls itself “Gateway to Wild Horse Country” because of its location near the Little Book Cliffs Wild Horse Range, one of three such ranges in the U.S. set aside to protect wild horses. More than 100 roam free in sagebrush parks and pinyon-juniper woodlands southwest of town on BLM land. A sign on the hotel at the town center, the Wild Horse Inn, declares “Wranglers Welcome,” and its tiny town square has a statue of a horse standing on its hind legs.
Read the full article at the Denver Post.