Before Tejaswin Shankar and Vikas Gowda, there was five-time NCAA Champion Mohinder Singh Gill

High Jumper Tejaswin Shankar is on the verge of accomplishing a feat which only two Indian men prior to the 19-year-old have managed till date.

Heading into the NCAA Track and Field Championships to be held at Hayward Field in Oregon, Tejaswin is ranked number one in the collegiate circuit in the high jump category, with a mark of 2.29 metres.

The second Indian man to do it is also in the news these days. Vikas Gowda, Indian national record holder in the Discus Throw, announced his retirement from athletics, 12 years after winning the event for North Carolina with a throw of 60.55 metres.

Tejaswin’s win for Kansas State could arrive 48 years after the first Indian man, Mohinder Singh Gill, won the Triple Jump event for California Polytechnic State University en route to five NCAA titles.

‘Hippie’ with a turban

When Gill took to the field in his first NCAA final in 1969, he was heckled by an Indian in the stands who thought the Punjabi triple jumper would ‘embarrass other Indians’. That was to be the first of five NCAA titles, not to mention five NCAA meet records.

But what was a 22-year-old doing so far away from home, at a time when an Indian getting into a American university on a sports scholarship was a rare sight?

Years of bickering with what was then the Amateur Athletics Federation of India (AAFI) had left the rising athlete disillusioned about opportunities in India, and it was a chance meeting with 200 metre Olympic champion in 1968, Tommie Smith, of the ‘Black Power Salute’ fame, that helped Gill make his mind up about going to an US university. The cancellation of the triple jump at the 1967 National Athletic Meet in New Delhi, after reigning national champion Labh Singh was taken ill, could have also played a part in this decision.

“I was a student at Kurukshetra University and I had broken the national record for triple jump twice. PK Mathur was president of the AAFI and they refused to recognise my record both times. Then, my friend Derek Bossey introduced me to Smith at the 1967 World University Games in the Olympic village in Tokyo. Smith asked me to write into several American colleges and I had received scholarships from UCLA and CSU,” says Gill who set a new NCAA record every time he won.

Gill’s team-mates at Cal. Poly were convinced that he was a ‘hippie’ whose ‘powers’ lay in his turban. The Punjabi even made one for coach Ralph Milburn and Cal. Poly went on to win the conference.

One of his finest victories came in 1971, where Gill won the Division I title, competing next to 12 Olympians. His national record of 16.79 metres at the West Coast Relays in Fresno was at the time, the second highest jump on American soil.

That record stood for 36 years and 46 days till Renjith Maheswary broke it with a jump of 17.04 metres at Guwahati in 2007. In 1993, when Gill was being inducted into the Cal Poly Hall of Fame, the first Asian to have the honour, he still held the university’s record 22 years later.

PMO intervenes for 1974 Commonwealth

All of Gill’s NCAA success, however, did not bring him any goodwill from the Indian authorities, as they continued to be at odds with the triple jumper.

For the 1974 Commonwealth Games to be held in Christchurch, Indira Gandhi was forced to step in and help Gill to improve on the bronze that he had won four years ago. At Edinburgh in 1970, Gill had become the third man and the only athlete to win a medal for India.

“The AAFI didn’t want to send me because my name was the only one remaining after a team-mate pulled out. They refused to send me flight tickets, which forced me to call up the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO). I spoke to her and she promised me help. Sure enough, I received the flight tickets soon enough,” says Gill, about his run-in with the AAFI.

The jumper then flew to New Zealand cutting it close to competition and winning the silver, which Gill says should have been gold. “The stadium authorities were distracted after the 1500 metres world record was broken. TV replays showed that the Ghanaian [Joshua Owusu] had fouled in his last jump. I was leading till the last jump and due to the absence of an official, I could not lodge an official complaint even though I witnessed the false jump.”

Olympic regret

But the biggest regret for Gill, who was born in Mehakpur Saheb, near Lahore, four months prior to India’s independence in 1947, will always be his inability to win an Olympic medal.

“I was practising my jumps three days prior to my event in Munich (1972 Olympics) when I landed awkwardly, tearing my hamstring. I was distraught but I was forced to pull out,” said Gill who had won a pre-Olympics event in 1971 at the same venue.

Prior to his injury, Gill had participated in his secondary event, Long Jump at Munich but could only finish 30th.

Awarded the Arjuna in 1970, Gill won three Asian Athletics Championships gold medals and an Asian Games gold and silver, apart from winning 52 international invitationals in North America and Europe, setting 19 records along the way.

Retirement at 29 and legacy

Gill’s final shot at the Olympics was also destined to end in disappointment. After having travelled all the way to Montreal by himself, the triple jumper alleged that he was denied an entry to the Triple Jump competition, “The AAFI didn’t allow me to enter the Olympics and turned my request down after I was present at the venue.”

Finally hanging up his boots in 1976, Gill took up a job as an athletics coach at Redland University after completing his MBA from there. Soon after, Gill started his own company Mohinder Sports.

A promising career had come to a premature end at 29, and had left behind all the makings of an unfulfilled legacy. The 70-year-old remained in the US after his career was over, and went about expanding his business.

Gill was informed by Bossey a few days ago that an Indian had made it to the NCAA Finals and he has very few words of advice for Shankar, “I know he can perform well and he is a strong jumper, from what I have seen on video. He has to put his head down and work hard now, because he has all the amenities and he is in good hands.”

Despite all the controversies, the Punjabi insists that he still follows Indian athletics, “There are one or two upcoming talents, [Neeraj] Chopra and Tejaswin. It’s heartening to see this because these two may take Indian athletics in the right direction.”

Tejaswin could start that journey by winning the gold at the NCAA high jump gold on June 8, almost half a century after Gill proved for the first time that an Indian could dominate one of the most competitive university circuits.