A NEARBY CHAIR didn’t stand a chance after Kennedy Stringfellow surpassed 26 feet for the first time in his long jump career.
The Oklahoma junior accidentally knocked over the furniture while celebrating his 26-¼ (7.93i) opening jump at the Owen Hewett Invitational in Norman on January 16.
After Stringfellow soared an astounding 27-2½ (8.29) on his next attempt, convincingly crossing the 8-meter barrier with the longest U.S. jump since April ’24, he had another takedown in mind. He pointed at his father, who was standing in the coaches’ box, and said, “I’m coming for you!”
Savanté Stringfellow, the ’04 world indoor champion and ’01 world outdoor silver medalist, was fighting to hold back tears. “Then I’m like, ‘Bring it on,” he says.
Savanté, who was his son’s first coach back in the eighth grade, later showed Kennedy the list of his Top 10 jumps, starting with his PR of 27-11½ (8.52) in June ’02. “I told him 8.29 wasn’t even on here,” Savanté says. “‘You’ve got to keep pushing.’”
Kennedy intends to do just that, and the family record — “He has no doubt that I’ll have that soon,” he says of his father — is just one goal to match or surpass. Savanté was NCAA outdoor champion in ’00 and ’01, indoor champ in ’01, a 4-time U.S. champion and ’00 Olympian.
“This season, I want to win it all,” Kennedy says. “I think I have the potential to be one of the best in the world. I feel like I’m just seeing a glimpse of what I could be.”
On his third attempt in Norman, he jumped 26-3½ (8.01) — solidifying his status as an 8-meter man — before calling it a day. Most of his family was in town from Brandon, Mississippi, for his 21st birthday the next day and they had so much more to celebrate.
His 8.29 jump was not only an Oklahoma school record, it was also the 13th-best collegiate mark in history and earned him the honor of USTFCCCA Men’s Div. I National Athlete of the week, a Sooners first indoors.
Stringfellow crushed his PR by nearly 2 feet, with his previous best 25-6 (7.77) from a meet in early December. That was a slight improvement over the 25-4½ (7.73) he jumped last year when he competed for Mississippi State.
Stringfellow owned the world-leading mark until world champion Mattia Furlani went 27-4 (8.33) in Paris on January 25.
The 20-year-old Italian had congratulated Stringfellow via Instagram — and he returned the compliment.
In ’23, when Furlani was jumping a windy 27-8¼ (8.44), Stringfellow’s best was a windy high school state-record 25-4 (7.72). He was undefeated in the long jump and 200 in winning Mississippi state titles, but felt that once he got to college he was “getting a little complacent” with the Bulldogs.
As soon as Stringfellow entered the transfer portal, Oklahoma reached out within the first hour. The Sooners offered a successful jumping program, with alumni including Rayvon Allen (who held the previous school record of 26-10½), and ’25 NCAA indoor runner-up Nikaoli Williams, whose indoor school record of 26-5½ (8.06) also fell to Stringfellow.
“When we were recruiting him, you could tell he was a special kind of athlete,” says Oklahoma jumps coach Austin Davis. “I didn’t necessarily know I had a 27-footer on my hands, but I felt like he was definitely a 26-foot guy.”
Stringfellow has run 20.77 in the 200, but Davis says he lost some of that speed going “straight up like he was in a dunk contest. Now it’s a little bit flatter.”
Kennedy says he has also benefited from a different weight program and a shorter approach, making him feel lighter and stronger.
Davis says that on the 8.29 jump, Stringfellow dropped his heels in the dirt a little too soon and was not directly on top of his checkmark.
Per the coach’s estimate, “Being conservative, I could see him jumping 8.40 [27-6¾], but 8.50 [27-10¾] is a possibility if he nails it.”
And to think that Kennedy was reluctant to try the long jump. Savanté was still paying the bills as a competitive athlete when he was born, jumping 25-7¼ (7.80) 12 days after his birth and 26-8½ (8.14) 13 days later.
Kennedy, the second of six children and the oldest boy, grew up singing in the choir and playing the violin. The kids would accompany their dad to the track on Sunday mornings, where “he would get a workout in and we would be out there complaining,” Kennedy says.
“I wasn’t really interested in sports,” he adds, “but then one day I was like, ‘You know, I could go out for track, but I’m not going to long jump.’”
Why not? “I didn’t want to be in my dad’s shadow,” Kennedy says.
Savanté didn’t push him. “Big shoes,” he says.
Kennedy tried hurdles and vaulting and quickly pivoted to the 200 and 400. He eventually took his first tentative steps in the long jump. He didn’t have immediate success, but stuck with it.
“I remember his mom [Leah McCullum] and I looked at each other, ‘Oh, crap, he may be good at this,’” Savanté says.
Even more importantly, Kennedy was enjoying it. “If I’m good at this,” he figured, “there’s no point in trying to hide it or mask it with another event, so why not take advantage of what I am good at and this talent and see what I can do?”
While their workouts brought them closer, the father was a tough taskmaster. When Kennedy didn’t make the state finals in the long jump in 10th grade, Savanté, who was officiating, made him rake the pit.
“I said, ‘I want you to see these guys that you know you can beat and know what it feels like to never want to be in this situation again,’” Savanté remembers.
When Savanté was competing, he said he was going to “fly like Superman” and had the T-shirt. Kennedy also has a Superman T-shirt, although his is blue and not red like dad’s.
“A lot of my family says that I act exactly like him, so I have taken a little bit of that Superman role,” Kennedy says. “Some of my teammates call me that. And some people say that I have the same ego and confidence.”
So, just how much does genetics play a part in his long jumping prowess?
“He works his tail off, but I’ve got a lot of kids that work their tail off,” Davis says. “Genetics helps. I would say it’s a 50-50 thing.”
Kennedy says both he and his father are hang jumpers: “I like to think I have a better run form than him. He might have better form in the air.”
Kennedy also has inherited his dad’s competitive spirit. “One of the things we talked about after this last meet was, ‘I don’t plan to lose again in college.’” Savanté says.
But he’s ready to see his own records eclipsed. “One thing a father wants,” he concludes, “we want our kid to be better than us.”
