Thursday, April 25, 2024
When Cotton Davidson showed up at Gary Kafer's house with some foam bales the summer after Kafer's sophomore year, Davidson was just trying to help a local kid get better at the high jump. Neither of them could have predicted that it would lead to Kafer's induction into the Baylor University Athletics Hall of Fame this year.
Kafer and his family had moved to Gatesville when he was in the seventh grade, and their next-door neighbor was Lowell Bishop, the junior high football coach, and he asked Kafer to be the football team manager the following year.
Bishop went on to be the track coach in Kafer's freshman and sophomore years, and he encouraged Kafer in his high jump efforts, which Kafer focused on in addition to running the 100-meter high hurdles.
Kafer had a couple of solid seasons on the Gatesville High School track team in the high jump, but both his coach and Davidson thought he could do more. And to do that, he would need to practice, and change his form slightly.
It all came together the summer after his sophomore year, as Kafer added nearly six inches to his high jump going into his junior season, where he set the state high jump record, if only briefly.
As a smaller school, Gatesville competed on Friday night, setting the state record with a jump of 6 feet, 8.5 inches, but that mark was surpassed by someone from a larger school during the Saturday events.
During that season, despite losing out on the state record, Kafer set the Gatesville High School high jump record with a mark of 6 feet, 9.25 inches, a record that still stands today.
Kafer went on to compete in and win at the Junior Olympics after his junior year of high school and performed well enough to catch the eye of Baylor track coach Clyde Hart, who was recruiting new talent at district events at the time.
Other colleges had noticed, too, and scholarship offers had already come in, but when Kafer met Hart, he knew that Baylor was where he wanted to be.
"Clyde Hart was the whole reason I went to Baylor," Kafer said. "I didn't even have an official visit or see the campus. He recruited me, I signed, and there I was."
Kafer's talent continued to shine early on in his track career after high school as well, and he made an impression right away, becoming the first jumper in Southwest Conference history to break the seven-foot mark in the high jump, clearing that mark by just a quarter of an inch. He repeated the feat twice more his freshman year, at the Border Olympics and the Texas Relay.
Unfortunately, an injury later that year resulted in a tear in his patellar tendon, but coach Clyde Hart was not going to give up on Kafer.
"I appreciate Coach Hart because after I tweaked my knee, he continued to support me," Kafer said. "It would have been an easy way out for him to let me go."
Kafer was never able to clear that same mark again, only managing six feet, 11 inches in competitions following the injury. That was still good enough as a senior to win the indoor conference championship, but nowhere near his previous winning form.
Kafer graduated from Baylor University in 1975 with a major in physical education and a minor in history, and returned to Gatesville to teach high school, marry his wife Mary, and raise a son, Canyon.
He retired from teaching in 2004 and was inducted into the Gatesville High School Hall of Fame in 2019.
Kafer left the track world behind a long time ago, and he never expected to get the call he did from Walter Abercrombie. Abercrombie, himself a Baylor Athletics Sports Hall of Fame running back and head of the Baylor "B" Association, a group made up of former Baylor athletes like Kafer, was calling to tell him that Kafer had been selected for induction into the hall of fame this year.
"I had never dreamed of something like this," Kafer said. "It happened because I was first one in the Southwest Conference to break that seven-foot mark" in his freshman year.
Kafer inducted into the Baylor Athletics Hall of Fame in a ceremony on Nov. 18 and recognized along with other inductees at the football game vs. Texas Christian University on Nov. 19.
