EVERYONE CAN SWIM, ONE GUY FLEW:

Four decades later, Bob Beamon still soaring (John Meyer, August 18, 2008, The Denver Post)

Forty years after his gargantuan long jump in Mexico City obliterated the existing world record by nearly 2 feet, Bob Beamon's "Perfect Flight" remains one of the greatest achievements in Olympic history.

But few realize what a leap it was for him to get there from the New York City borough of Queens, where he was an aimless, troublemaking teen before discovering track and field.

That's how he begins telling his story: Being unable to read or write when he was 14. Being a delinquent and going to an "alternative" school, where he was frisked and locked inside from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Yet even then he had a strange feeling he would do something special some day.

On Oct. 18, 1968, Beamon flew 29 feet, 2½ inches, inspiring the creation of the word "Beamonesque" to describe seemingly superhuman feats. But before he could shock the world, he had to find himself. It is a message he promotes today through the Bob Beamon Organization for Youth, with a goal of getting troubled kids pointed in the right direction.

"I always look back at when I didn't have a dream, when I didn't have a spirit," Beamon said. "I didn't know what the Olympics was all about. I was just hanging out on the street. I was not humble. I was not a nice person, doing things that were socially unacceptable.

"When you can't read or write, at 14 or 15, in most cases you're headed for trouble, and trouble was finding me."

He found his calling when he was 15. Using borrowed shoes in a Junior Olympics meet, he jumped 24 feet, 1 inch, and fell in love with flying.