State’s top-ranked high jumper wonders: How high can I go?
Kyle Archie was one of the most improved basketball players in the Berks Conference this season. His Muhlenberg team beat Reading High and eventual county champ Wilson in Berks I play and earned a spot in the PIAA Tournament.
Still, when the season was over the senior center felt incomplete.
“I refuse to leave this school without winning anything, without someone putting something around my neck,” he told his teammates during a late-season team meeting. “I need something.”
He decided to return to track and field and to the high jump, an event he dabbled in as a freshmen but left behind the last few springs to work on his basketball game. He saw that the county champ last year won at a mere 6-2. I could do that, he thought.
Never did he imagine that pursuit would change the direction of his life.
“It’s kind of a surreal thing,” he said after stunning everyone, himself included, by clearing 6-8 to win District 3 Class 3A gold last week.
Archie’s progression in a sport he had never seriously trained for has been amazing, to say the least. He cleared 6-0 to finish second at the Oxenreider Streamline Classic in early April. It was a major confidence-booster.
“The next week I got 6-3 and thought: ‘I might be able to do something with this,’ ” Archie said. “After that we kept on stacking and stacking and stacking.”
He cleared 6-4 for the first time in a dual meet April 16 against Gov. Mifflin. A few days later he won the Twin Valley Invitational at the same height. He reached 6-6 for the first time at the Shaner Meet May 3 to claim another gold.
He won the Firing Meet at 6-6 a week later — and just like that his world changed. College track coaches began reaching out to him. He was an overnight sensation.
With a gold medal already locked up last week at Shippensburg he cleared 6-7 for the first time, practice or competition – on his first try, no less.
By that point many of the fans, athletes and coaches at Seth Grove Stadium were aware that Archie was in the process of doing something special and focused their attention on the high jump pit.
Some of his fellow competitors started a rhythmic clap as he rocked back and forth on the runway, preparing to reach heights he had never before experienced.
“It was like one of those out-of-body experience moments,” said Archie, a humble sort who doesn’t go around looking for the spotlight. “It was really loud, but it was silent in my mind.”
On his 11th attempt of the day he nailed 6-8, within two inches of the program record, set by Tyrell Ellison in 2009. No one in the state has jumped higher this season.
How does something like this happen?
A relative novice with no offseason prep work improves by eight inches in six weeks and heads to the PIAA Championships as the No. 1 seed? That’s not normal.
“I wasn’t thinking anything about a district championship coming in (to the season),” Archie said. “It’s really crazy.”
Greg Johnson, Muhlenberg’s jumps coach, says it comes down to the three D’s: Dedication, determination, and drive.
“That is exactly what I see from Kyle,” he said.
Johnson knew nothing about Archie when he showed up for practice this spring but he realized right away there was potential.
Archie is 6-3, 170 pounds. You don’t have to be Dwight Stones to take a look at him and immediately realize his event is the high jump. He’s built for it.
He’s a fluid, natural athlete. He played quarterback and wide receiver in football, and was an all-league defensive back last season. He was dunking a basketball by the time he was a freshman.
It takes more than that, of course.
“He’s got the work ethic – that’s the main thing right there,” Johnson said.
Archie’s a quick study, too. When Johnson explains a technique or points out a mechanical flaw during practice sessions Archie is able to absorb the message and executive the change.
“Ever since he realized he could be something in high jump,” Johnson said, “he’s been so focused and so dedicated to improving every single week.”
Archie says he’s picked up a lot of things on his own, watching YouTube and TikTok videos of Olympic champions.
It helped to get personal instruction from his cousin T.J. White, a Muhlenberg grad and former Berks champ who’s jumping at Kutztown University. (White finished second in the high jump at the PSAC Championships.)
“I worked with him for a week and got my steps down,” Archie said. “That’s when it started to take off.”
Archie rushed home from Shippensburg last Friday so that he could make it to Muhlenberg’s prom. He fashionably wore his district medal.
“I wasn’t taking that thing off,” he said with his gold-medal smile. “I had to wear it. I kept that thing on for about three days.”
Up until a couple weeks ago Kyle Archie was planning to play football at Gettysburg. No longer. His No. 1 sport is now track and field. He’s picked up a couple college offers in the last week. If he does well Saturday at the PIAA Championships more could follow.
Months before his first college class he has already learned a huge lesson.
“There’s a lot of things you can do that you don’t know (you can do),” he said. “I wasn’t thinking I was gonna get 6-7, 6-8. Once I got that (I’m wondering): ‘What can I really do? How high can I get?’ “