Women's Track & Field
- Title:
- High Jump Coach
John Radetich is entering his fifth season as the high jumps coach for the Oregon State track and field program.
During his coaching career in the Orange and Black, Radetich has helped guide a pair of the school’s all-time best high jumpers. In 2010, he tutored Jordan Bishop into becoming the first All-American for the Oregon State track program since Karl Van Calcar (3,000-meter steeplechase) and John Thomas (hammer) in 1988. Bishop’s jump of 7-1.50 at the 2010 NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships placed him 6th in Oregon State history.
That same year, high jumper Obum Gwacham cleared 7-1.75 at the Oregon Preview and in 2012 Gwacham cleared 7-1.50 at the Pac-12 Championships.
In 2013, Radetich worked closely with freshman high jumper Sara Almen, who became OSU's first female field event participant at an NCAA meet since 1988 when she competed at the West Regional in Austin, Texas and topped all freshman competitors. Almen’s PR of 5-11.25 was 19th in the country during the indoor season, the third-best for any freshman and the second-best in the Pac-12, regardless of season (indoor or outdoor), behind only Arizona’s Brigetta Barrett’s collegiate-record leap of 6-6.25 at the conference championships. Almen’s third-place finish at the Pac-12 Championships was also the best for a freshman at the event since 2010 and placed her sixth on OSU's all-time outdoor list (5-10).
Radetich was a coach at Linn Benton Community College and Oregon State in the 1970s. He also has coached at South Albany High School, West Albany High School and Philomath High School. He worked for the Boys and Girls Club of Albany for 29 years and had over 300 grade school and middle school track athletes in his program each year.
Radetich was one of three seven-foot high jumpers enrolled at Oregon State while getting his degree, which was the first school to have three seven-foot high jumpers enrolled at the same time. He was the Pac-8 high jump champion in 1970. After college, he was the first high jumper to clear seven feet using both the straddle and the flop techniques. In 1973, Radetich set the indoor world record in the first professional track and field meet in Pocatello, Idaho, which was the first world record for the Fosbury Flop.
