Hog Calls

UA to host some of U.S.' best jumpers

Arkansas jumper Jarrion Lawson competes during the Razorbacks' dual meet against Texas on Friday, Jan. 17, 2015, at Randal Tyson Track Center in Fayetteville.
Arkansas jumper Jarrion Lawson competes during the Razorbacks' dual meet against Texas on Friday, Jan. 17, 2015, at Randal Tyson Track Center in Fayetteville.

FAYETTEVILLE -- If it only matched Arkansas' Jarrion Lawson vs. former Florida Gator Marquis Dendy, Friday's 6 p.m. men's long jump would be worth the price for the entire Tyson Invitational meet that the University of Arkansas hosts Friday and Saturday at the Randal Tyson Indoor Track.

But there's more to Friday's long jump. A lot more.

"It's insane," Travis Geopfert, the jumps coach for the Arkansas men's track and field team, said of Friday's long jump. "It's loaded."

Geopfert counted 10 among the pros and collegians in Friday's long jump soaring at 26 feet or better.

Four have surpassed 27-0, including Dendy, the 2015 NCAA indoor and outdoor champion who is now jumping for Nike; Lawson, a Razorbacks senior in track; and pros Tyron Stewart and former Florida State NCAA champion Ngoni Makusha.

By 15 inches, Lawson set a personal record of 27-6½ to win the 2014 NCAA indoor title.

In 2015, NCAA champion Dendy and NCAA runner-up Lawson both surpassed 27 feet at both the NCAA indoor in Fayetteville and NCAA outdoor in Eugene, Ore.

"Marquis Dendy will be here, and I am excited," Lawson said. "We always get big jumps when we compete against each other. Indoors last year, he beat me by a centimeter (27-2 to 27-1½ in feet and inches). And outdoors he jumped 27-8, and I jumped 27-4."

Given Friday's jumpers, no telling how far the winner will go.

"Another world mark will be set," Lawson said for this 2016 indoor season. "We'll just have to see who it is and who gets it."

Don't discount Lawson, the current world leader this year with 26-9¾, which won the Razorback Invitational two weeks ago in his 2016 debut.

"That is my best opening by far, and I am thankful for that," Lawson said.

So is Geopfert. He sees Lawson on track for big things this Olympic year.

"He knows, and I know and everybody else knows he was a way better jumper last year than he was the year before," Geopfert said of Lawson surpassing 27-0 consistently. "And you look at him physically and mentally, and he is way better than last year."

Geopfert said Lawson will propel farther continually, picking up world-class speed as a sprinter co-trained by sprints coach Doug Case.

"The long jump is all about velocity to the board," Geopfert said. "The faster you get, the farther you are going to jump."

And the more coordinated the coaching -- Case and Geopfert for years have cross-trained elite athletes under UA head track Coach Chris Bucknam at Northern Iowa and then Arkansas -- the more likely that sprinting and jumping complements each other.

"Case and I have worked side by side on all that stuff," Geopfert said. "It's different in other programs where it's his guy and my guy. He's our guy. It's not about me, and it's not about Case. It's about Jarrion and making the best decisions for him to succeed."

Sports on 02/10/2016

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