GRAY — A casual observer might wonder if Eli Locke uses a hidden springboard to gracefully launch himself over a high-jump bar.

Watching the Gray-New Gloucester senior make impressive leaps would make anybody suspicious.

Locke will be the first to point out that he is not an imposing figure, but he commands respect whenever he leaves the ground for those precious few moments and passes over that stubborn bar.

He does it well and with ease.

“As an athlete, I am not like particularly strong, but I am agile, I guess I’d say, and bouncy, which helps me out with all the jumping,” said Locke, whose personal best in the high jump is 6 feet, four inches. “I was always just bouncy, and (high hurdles) just fits for me.”

You can tell right away that Locke — a polite, wiry athlete who can leap over a high bar in a single bound — has been raised in a please-and-thank-you home.

This smart, mild-mannered kid, who has been home-schooled since the second grade, has become a top-notch jumper for the Patriots.

Leaping for joy

But his easy-going demeanor can be deceiving. Locke is as competitive as the next athlete and is always trying to raise the bar with every leap he takes.

“I am hoping to win the states in the high jump and hopefully place in the long jump and pole vault,” Locke said.

“Elijah Locke has an amazing level of body control and understanding,” said Patriots assistant coach Erin Maguire, who works with the jumpers. “He’s certainly not the tallest kid on the team, and it always amazes people when he steps up to the high jump mat surrounded by taller, stronger looking young men.

“They wonder why he isn’t starting at the lower heights, and then are shocked to see him jump. We call him Tiger, because it seems like he bounds everywhere. Last year we worked directly on positioning his hips, and learning to be patient in the air. It paid off tremendously as Eli realized he had time in the air and could use that to his advantage.”

When Locke isn’t leaping for over bars, he spends his time competing in other events. Locke is the team’s utility man on the field. He competes in the long and triple jump, pole vault, and 55-meter hurdles. He is also on-call when the team needs him to run sprints and relays.

“He’s a good athlete. You could put him in most of the events and he’d be successful,” Gray-NG track coach Todd Mercer said. “He’s been around several years now. People look to him as one of the leaders who know what they are doing. So we are expecting him to step up and take on a leadership role this year.”

Both Mercer and Maguire believe this year will be the best yet for the soft-spoken Locke .

“Just coming into practice this fall, he already looks stronger than he did last spring,” Mercer said. “I am expecting he will better than last year.”

“His body control last year made all the difference as he jumped to being a consistent 6-0 jumper and the one of an elite few in the state who jumped 6-4 last spring,” Maguire said. “To be honest, we are shooting for gold this year. He looks stronger and has been smooth in practice.

“Elijah is a smart jumper, but has learned to trust his body and not over-think. Over the years he has become willing to take risks and try some drills that seem goofy, or strange. Some have been a bust, but others have worked.”

Nice guys finish first

Sure, Locke’s coaches are impressed with his performance as a jumper and rely on him to help carry the team, but they can’t say enough about his good-guy attitude and team spirit.

“Eli’s a great kid,” Mercer said. “He’s fun, he’s energetic, he’s enthusiastic and when it gets down to time to get to work, he can be very focused.”

“This year he has shown a support and excitement for his team,”Maguire said. “He has been a great young man to coach and I am incredibly proud of him.”

For Locke, the high jump comes natural to him, and he considers being a member of the Gray-New Gloucester indoor track team a privilege.

“It is something I enjoy doing because I just love the feeling of hanging there in mid air, and it feels like forever. It’s fun,” Locke said. “I like to help the team out.”

tblasi@sunjournal.com

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