Dennis Lewis, the Greta Garbo of masters track, says he’s looking forward to again challenging M45 high jump world champion Bruce McBarnette at Charlotte this summer. So says a report in his hometown paper, which is hard as heck to read online because the paper’s Web site makes you jump through all manner of hoops. (They cheat to get more page views by chopping the story up into many pieces.) So to save you digital frustration, I’ve stitched the story together:

Leaping for the love
His life renewed, Ypsilanti’s Lewis seeks Masters national title
Monday, April 17, 2006
By SETH GORDON
News Staff Reporter
It’s been more than 30 years since Dennis Lewis began high jumping as a freshman at Ypsilanti High School, but you can still find him clearing the bar at Shadford Field.
It wasn’t too long after he graduated in 1977 that he began to break high jump records, and he hasn’t let a number stop him from breaking more in 2006.
Shortly before turning 47 years old, Lewis broke the Masters 45-year-old class world record with a jump of 6 feet, 8 1/4 inches at the Eastern Michigan University Classic in February.
But the road Lewis has traveled since his days as a Brave hasn’t always provided for a smooth ride.
Lewis’ highs included a national championship and American record in the 1980s, but his lows included drug abuse, jail and a ban from the sport he loves. Sober and in control of his life for the last 13 years, Lewis is embracing his latest return to track and field.
The wager
Lewis’ leaping ability lead him from Ypsilanti High School to Michigan State University, where, as a freshman, he finished second in the high jump at the 1978 NCAA championships with a jump of 7-foot-3.
But Lewis dropped out of school after one year to work in an automotive plant. That kept him away from competition for nearly five years.
It wasn’t until the spring of 1983, when Lewis found himself watching the high jump portion of the Melrose Games with his father, that the competitive spark was lit within him again.
Lewis watched as Dwight Stones recorded the winning jump with a height of 7-4 1/2. Lewis told his dad he could beat that jump, because he had been doing it on his own in practice at Eastern.
So the elder Lewis bet his son that he couldn’t beat a group of what amounted to be professionals.
“We’ll see,” the younger Lewis responded.
A meteoric rise
Lewis prepared himself for a December meet at Eastern, where he first showed the natural talent and aloofness that has wowed and confused the track and field community for 23 years.
Lewis came to the meet, borrowed a pair of spikes from a college competitor and won the competition with a 7-5 3/4 flop. But Lewis wasn’t satisfied, and on his fourth – and unofficial – jump, he cleared a personal best 7-7 1/4. Lewis’ final leap was just short of the world record of 7-7 3/4 set at a week earlier by a Russian.
Lewis’ performance led to an invitation to the Melrose Games and the opportunity to make good on the bet. He cleared 7-4 1/2 to take third place. One year after watching the event on television, Lewis found it a bit surreal to compete there.
“Honestly, it really didn’t sink in, it was just really strange,” Lewis said. “I didn’t have a whole lot of competition around here, for one. And I didn’t train with anybody, so I was used to jumping against the bar all the time. So, it didn’t really dawn on me until three weeks after the meet.”
The zenith
After Melrose, Lewis was invited to meet after meet, which formed the two-year pinnacle of his career.
“So, off my career went, just like that,” Lewis said.
Lewis again displayed his unique personality and competitive style at the 1984 National Indoor Championships at New York’s Madison Square Garden.
After winning the competition, a reporter asked Lewis how it felt to be a national champion.
“This is the national championship meet?” Lewis replied. “I knew the name of the meet was the The Athletic Congress/Mobile, but I had never been to a big meet or anything, and I just thought it was another meet. It was pretty wild.”
Lewis was a favorite to make the U.S. Olympic team in 1984, but finished fifth at the trials in Los Angeles.
“It was exciting, but there was so much smog in L.A., a lot of the athletes were falling out and passing out,” Lewis said. “It was extremely hot and very smoggy, so I had problems breathing, myself.”
Lewis recovered from the disappointment to set a personal record of 7-8 at the University of Southern California early in 1985.
Later that year, he set the American record by clearing 7-8 1/4.
A dark chapter
But everything began to fall apart for Lewis in 1986.
He had become a member of the New Balance Track Club, which allowed him to live full-time in California. He was soon overtaken by the partying lifestyle that came with his athletic success “Things just started spiraling,” Lewis said. “I started snorting cocaine and partying. It got bad around 1986.”
By the late ’80s, Lewis was working for a moving company that kept him on the road for much of the year. Meanwhile, The Athletic Congress requested Lewis to take a drug test. Lewis never took the test because he claims he never received the summons.
“I don’t know if I would have failed it if I would have taken it at the time,” Lewis said.
The result was a four-year ban, but by that point in his life, it was the least of his concerns.
In 1993, Lewis says he was sentenced to a year in jail for retail fraud.

Clean and sober
Lewis entered Washtenaw County jail on November 17, 1983, the first day of what has been 13 years of sobriety. Even in his darkest hour, one person never gave up on Lewis.
Mike McKevicus, his former track coach and a math teacher at Ypsilanti high, convinced the authorities to suspend Lewis’ sentence so that he could be admitted to a drug rehabilitation clinic.
Lewis checked into former NBA coach John Lucas’ rehab clinic in Houston, Texas, in the middle of February 1994.
“They let me out and let me go down to Houston and the rest is history,” Lewis said. “I’ve been clean ever since. … It worked out for me.”
But depressed and unable to compete, Lewis exited the rehabilitation clinic and returned to Michigan.
Soon after, he petitioned the The Athletic Congress to overturn his ban. Lewis was able to tell his story, that he straightened up his act and was getting his life in order. The board listened, and reinstated him in 1995.
Lewis says he jumped at open events at Eastern Michigan, but for the next four years, he mostly stayed away from the track.
“I was basically getting my life back together, trying to buy a house,” he said. “I had just got back on my feet. … I was down to nothing, homeless and everything.”
It was at this point that Lewis took a position as a waste water treatment operator for the Ypsilanti Community Utilities Authority, a job he still holds today.
A unique style
In 1999, Lewis finally returned to the track, but judging by the results, it was as if he never left.
He stormed the Masters Outdoor National Championships in Florida, winning the 40-year-old class with a 6-10 1/2 leap.
Lewis topped 13-time national champion Bruce McBarnette at the meet, though he did not realize who McBarnette was.
In the following years, Lewis floated in and out of events, often appearing to upstage college athletes 20 years his junior.
“That’s the most exciting part of the whole deal,” Lewis said. “When I went to the meets at Eastern and Michigan, all the fans remember me from 30 years ago, when I was in high school. They’ve seen me since I was a young guy, but when they see me do it now, they’re just amazed.”
Lewis did it without much training, and since 1999 he hasn’t competed in one full indoor or outdoor season. He prefers to stay in shape by playing basketball and lifting weights, then to drop in on an event and put up a big number.
“They would get a kick out of me, because I would come to all the meets late, and don’t even warm up,” Lewis said. “The bar is set at 6-8, and I just take my sweats off and run up and jump it. Then they’ll say ‘How does he do that?’ ”
A new record
In typical Lewis-style, he had made jumps prior to this February that would have qualified for the Masters 45 world record had he insured the proper documentation.
It wasn’t until the EMU Classic that a fellow M45 competitor, pole vaulter Paul Babits, asked Lewis if he even knew what the record was. He told him it was 6-3 3/4, and that it was held by McBarnette.
By now, Lewis had learned all about how McBarnette dominated the national championship meets that he had been ignoring. That motivated Lewis, who made sure a Masters official was present before he shattered the record with his 6-8 1/4 jump.
“I didn’t really have any motivation until he told me that, but I knew I could break it,” Lewis said.
Looking to the future
Lewis now has his eyes set on this year’s Masters Outdoor National Championships, which will be held in North Carolina in August.
He is driven to beat McBarnette head-to-head. But Lewis won’t train alone.
A cousin of Ypsilanti basketball coach Steve Brooks, Lewis will begin mentoring Braves basketball players and track athletes Woody Payne and C.J. Simmons. He believes both are capable of clearing 7 feet, and is confident they will at least improve to 6-8.
“I know they have big potential,” Lewis said. “Anybody that can run that fast can jump high. If you can run fast, you can jump high – you just have to convert it. And these guys are way faster than I was when I was in high school.”
Lewis is leaping again, more than happy to be giving back to the sport he loves.
“I’m glad to be back. It’s exciting,” he said. “I lost the fire for a while, but the championship meet (has) really geeked me up.”
Me again:
If ever there was a clash of contrasts, this is it.
Dennis cares not a whit for records; Bruce craves them. (He even claimed an M45 indoor record after Dennis had put it outtasight.)
Dennis, a masters recluse, rarely competes; Bruce will jump at the drop of a hat.
Dennis is a Michigan State dropout who works in a city sewer department; Bruce is a Princeton law school graduate who works in movies, real estate and speaks for pay (among other gigs highlighted by a shining resume.)
I doubt Dennis even has email; Bruce has his own Web site.
But when they meet on the high jump apron at the USATF National Masters Outdoor Championships this August, none of this matters. All that counts is getting your butt over a bar the highest.
I can’t wait.