Dwight Edwin Stones (born December 6, 1953) is an American television commentator and a two-time Olympicbronze medalist and former three-time world record holder in the men'shigh jump. During his 16-year career, he won 19 national championships. In1984, Stones became the first athlete to both compete and serve as an announcer at the same Olympics. Since then, he has been acolor analyst for all three major networks in the United States and continues to covertrack and field on television.[5] He served as an analyst forNBC Sports coverage of Track and Field at the2008 Summer Olympics.[6] He is a member of theUS Track Hall of Fame, theCalifornia Sports Hall of Fame, theInternational Jewish Sports Hall of Fame, and the Orange County Jewish Sports Hall of Fame.[7]
Born inLos Angeles,[8][9] Stones set a national high school record while atGlendale High School in 1971 at 2.17 m (7 ft1+3⁄8 in),[1][10] then won the bronze medal at age 18 at the1972 Olympics inMunich,West Germany. He set his firstworld record the following summer when he cleared2.30 m (7 ft6+1⁄2 in), also at Munich.[11] That jump also made him the first "flop" jumper to set a world record, five years afterDick Fosbury made that style famous while winning the gold medal at the1968 Olympics inMexico City. Stones raised the world record to2.31 m (7 ft6+15⁄16 in) at theNCAA Championships atFranklin Field inPhiladelphia in June 1976,[12] and added another centimeter to the record two months later at2.32 m (7 ft7+5⁄16 in).
Stones attendedUCLA his freshman year (1971–72), and later transferred toLong Beach State for a year and a half,[1] and is a member of that university's hall of fame.
In 1994, Stones hosted the second season of the ESPN game showDream League.
At the1976 Olympics inMontréal, he was a heavy favorite to win the gold medal. Earlier, he finished second at theU.S. Olympic Trials, then had to settle for another Olympic bronze behindJacek Wszoła and local favoriteGreg Joy when his jumping ability was hampered by the competition being struck by heavy rain.[15] A few days later, he raised the world record to2.32 m (7 ft7+5⁄16 in) in dry conditions at Franklin Field in Philadelphia.[16]
His participation at the Montreal Games sparked a heated debate: he had allegedly said that he hatedFrench Canadians (Montréal-Matin Newspaper, July 29, 1976, pages 5 and 8) when he criticised the organization of the Games in a media interview. Consequently, Stones was subject to raucous booing and hissing during the competition. The debate became so inflamed that he decided on a new tee-shirt for the day of the final, the back of the shirt reading "I love French Canadians",[15] which officials asked him to take off. The Americans in the audience responded to the treatment of Stones by booingClaude Ferragne, a French-Canadian jumper, during the event.[citation needed]
After missing the1980 Olympics in Moscow due to the American-ledboycott, Stones returned to the Games at age thirty in1984 in Los Angeles, and finished fourth.[3] He cleared 2.31 m, but lost the bronze medal toZhu Jianhua on the countback. His distant cousin,Doug Nordquist, finished fifth, clearing 2.29 m. He had earned his spot on the U.S. Olympic Team by setting his 13th American record at2.34 m (7 ft8+1⁄8 in), Nordquist finished second (2.31 m)[17] at theU.S. Olympic Trials on June 24.
In the transitional time whenamateurism requirements were fought by the athletes, Stones was a leading advocate of the change striving to break the barrier of payment to athletes. During that period, one of the first options was for winnings to be paid to the athlete's club. To answer that, Stones created the Desert Oasis Track Club, a California corporation. The only athlete in the club was Dwight Stones.[18] The stockholders and officers were Dwight Stones and his family members. Stones first made money in the televised sports creationSuperstars which was "donated" to the track club. This caused theIAAF and its American affiliate theAAU to suspend Stones. The ensuing lawsuit led to theAmateur Sports Act of 1978, which broke up the AAU, decertifying it as the national governing body for track and field (and many other sports) causing the formation ofThe Athletics Congress and the slow transition to direct renumeration for athletes.[13]
United States
