Dunking Phenom "Jus Fly" Launches His High Jumping Career

You might remember recently we featured Justin “Jus Fly” Darlington on this blog.

He’s a 20-year-old slam dunking phenom from Ajax whom veteran track coach Daniel St-Hilaire is hoping to transform into a high jumping champion.

Well, he’s off to a good start.

In his first outdoor meet this past weekend in St-Laurent, Que., Darlington surprised St-Hilaire by jumping 2.10 metres to qualify for the national championships next month at Varsity Stadium in Toronto. He currently ranks fourth in Canada this season.

“I’m pretty excited,” said St-Hilaire. “He’s ahead of my expectations.”

St-Hilaire had projected that Darlington could jump between 2.10 and 2.20 metres in his first season in the event.

Watch Darlington’s winning jump below:

Track Coach Harbours Bigtime Hoop Dreams

Daniel St-Hilaire is the track and field coach who discovered Justin “Jus Fly” Darlington on the Internet and hopes to transform the Ajax resident into an Olympic high jump medallist (as featured on the front of the Star today and also below in the blog), but his hoop dreams don’t end there.

St-Hilaire’s theory is that basketball has better and more dynamic athletes than track and field and there are plenty of gems out there to be mined.

He points to the basketball backgrounds of former Canadian sprint kings Donovan Bailey and Bruny Surin – the latter recruited by St-Hilaire – as well as Brampton high jumper Mark Boswell, a two-time world championship medallist.

“I am sure there are a lot of great athletes who never got to try track,” said St-Hilaire.

St-Hilaire’s vision is to set up camps for kids that combine basketball and track and field, or even more specifically, dunking and track and field.

The veteran coach said they would try to attract kids from 12 to 20 years old to such a camp in Montreal this fall and teach dunking to them on Tuesday and track and field on Thursday. The hoops would be set at varying heights depending on their age and ability.

St-Hilaire said Darlington would be a coach and obviously the main attraction at such a camp.

It’s easy to understand why when you watch this:

Is "Jus Fly" A Slam Dunk To Be Canada's Next Great High Jumper

Veteran Track Coach Daniel St-Hilaire believes the young man in this video is Canada's next great high jumper:

He’s Justin Darlington, aka Jus Fly, he’s 20 years old and he’s from Ajax, Ont.

St-Hilaire, an extremely passionate, if not a little quirky, track coach from Montreal, is convinced he’s got the country’s next great high jumper in Darlington.

He discovered him on the internet by googling “slam dunk basketball.” St-Hilaire found videos like the one above and couldn’t believe Darlington’s natural ability. Then he located him on Facebook and found out he was Canadian. St-Hilaire probably jumped as high as Darlington at that point.

“He was like a lost jewel,” said St-Hilaire, who once coached Canadian sprint star Bruny Surin, also a former basketball player.

St-Hilaire asked Darlington if he was interested in high jumping. It turns out that man cannot live off dunking alone, although Darlington has performed at halftime of a Raptors game this season and is currently travelling in Beijing with Team Flight Brothers.

When St-Hilaire told Darlington how much money he could potentially make as a world-class international high jumper, his reaction was: “When do we start, coach?”

The education of Darlington as a high jumper has begun, partly under St-Hilaire in Montreal and also here in Toronto under Gary Lubin, another of those incredibly passionate, quirky coaching dudes who helped develop Canada’s last great high jumper, Mark Boswell.

St-Hilaire notes Darlington has already jumped 2.01 metres after six technical workouts and believes this summer he can get up to 2.10 or 2.20. That's good as a starting point. To start competing internationally, he needs to be over 2.20 consistently.

St-Hilaire already has a golden glint in his eyes as he thinks towards the 2012 London Olympics. He points to Donald Thomas of the Bahamas, won won gold at the 2007 world championships, less than two years after switching to track from basketball.

“I feel Justin has more potential,” said St-Hilaire.