Personal History

Figure 1, 1970: Jumpin' Gene Halton clears 7 feet (2.134 m) Jadwin Gym, Princeton University

As an undergraduate at Princeton University and later, Halton was active in athletics. He was on the men's basketball team freshman year, and competed in track and field throughout college and after. He won the Heptagonal League high jump three times, set an Ivy League record of 7 feet 1 inch (2.16 meters), and was the first ivy league jumper to clear 7 feet.

Halton was an internationally ranked high jumper, competed in the 1972 US Olympic trials, and was a member of the US Track and Field Team in 1973 and 1974 for track meets against the Soviet Union. He participated in the 1970 Olympic Training Camp at Duke University, where he was fortunate to have Oregon State University's Bernie Wagner as one of his coaches. And he appeared on the October 1970 cover of Track and Field News.

In 2020 he was selected for the Shore Athletic Club Hall of Fame. First as a high jumper, then independently some years later as a musician, Halton picked up the nickname Jumpin' Gene.

2023: Jumpin' Gene returns to Jadwin Gym 53 years later, holding high jump bar set at 7 feet (2.134 m)

Halton has also performed harmonica internationally and written songs which have been recorded, including the lyrics for Tow Truck Man, which appears on the Willie Buck Delmark Records CD, Cell Phone Man, and Smoke and Mirrors, which appears on the Rockin' Johnny Burgin 2017 CD, Neoprene Fedora, on West Tone Records.

To return to Halton's website: https://www3.nd.edu/~ehalton/