Joe Faust (athlete)

Joseph Patrick Faust (born September 21, 1942 in Los Angeles, California, United States) is an American track and field athlete known for the high jump.

He graduated in June 1959 from Culver City High School,[1] at age 16; then he attended UCLA for a month; in the following semester he attended Occidental College and was there coached by Charles "Chuck" Coker (founder of Universal Gym Equipment); then at age 17 year 284 days, he became the youngest American to qualify for the Olympic high jump,[2] just one day younger than Reynaldo Brown who qualified for the 1968 Olympics also from a Southern California high school.

[5] Bill Peck Archived 2019-09-12 at the Wayback Machine and others observed Faust's unofficial jump of 7' 4.75" in a third competition within a 24 hr period on the field of the Mt.

San Antonio Relays; he jumped in the first two events officially; the third was an unofficial jumping session; the bar was wood and square cross-sectioned; the bar stayed up for about 8 seconds; at the moment the official world record by Brumel was less; Bill Peck (Joe's fellow track teammate at Occidental College; Bill was also a contestant at the Olympic Trials in 1960 at Stanford University) had been at the same Olympic Trials in 1960 when Faust broke the world junior record; Bill was one of the many witnesses in 1962 of Joe's life-best high jump; in background public address system, one could hear the Relays' officials crowning his future wife as Mt.

En route, he finished second at the 1959 CIF California State Meet and fourth the year before.

His natural father came on the field when Joe just cleared his first 7 ft jump at the Olympic Trials at Stanford University in 1960.

The author David Maraniss of the book Rome 1960 publicly acknowledged that some Faust family history errors published are to be corrected in further editions.

Mike Wallace interviewed Faust as hang glider pilot for a 60 Minutes segment titled, 'Ever Since Icarus', initially aired on August 31, 1975.