"Well, come over here and try one or two, and we will see if you have any spring in your legs. Most natural sprinters have."
"You see," said Patsy as they reached the broad jump runway, "you get up your speed here and then strike this take-off board with whichever foot comes most convenient for you to jump from; lift yourself into the air and strike in that soft sawdust pit. The jump is measured from the face of the take-off to the point where you break the ground nearest to the take-off block. Do you get me?"
Frank nodded and walked down the runway, measuring carefully with his eye the distance he had to go.
"All ready," shouted Patsy; "come on!"
Frank took a run, gathering momentum as he came. He saw ahead of him the trainer and Codfish Gleason and a dozen boys watching his effort, and in spite of his best attempts he could not concentrate his mind on that take-off block. It seemed to lie somewhere in a fog, and he simply kept on running with the result that he dashed across it into the sawdust, which is put there to break the fall of the jumpers, tried to stop, and went headlong. He picked himself up, covered with sawdust, and much chagrined at his failure.
"I want to try that over again," he said. "I couldn't seem to see where that block was, and I missed it."
Patsy grinned. "The best of them do that sometimes. It's one of the hardest things in jumping. As you come up to the block, you want to concentrate your mind on that place. Arrange your steps so you will come to it on the foot you can best jump from, and come down on the block as hard as you can, bouncing off it, so to speak, and going as far up in the air as you can. The momentum you have gained in your run will carry you along. That's the idea of the broad jump. And don't get nervous." Patsy communicated this information to Frank as he walked along with him to the head of the runway.
"The take-off, the take-off, the take-off," was drumming through Frank's mind as he came rushing down for it. So determined was he not to overrun the block that he under-did it this time, and he "took-off" about 14 inches before he reached the block. But even in spite of this handicap, the measuring tape showed a jump of 15 feet 6 inches.
"O, but," said Frank, "you are not measuring from where I jumped."