By Ken Stone

Nine years after retiring from international track, Willie Banks made quick work of the world outdoor M45 triple jump record June 30 in his masters track debut.

Banks, who turned 45 in March, blasted a 47-8 3/4 on his first legal leap at the San Diego Association USATF Open and Masters Championships at UC San Diego to shatter a mark set only three weeks earlier by Dave Quick at a USATF tuneup meet at Long Beach State University.

In that meet, Quick topped by two inches the 14-year-old world mark of 46-6 1/4 set by Finland’s Stig Backlund. As fate would have it, a man raking the pit for Quick was William Augustus Banks III -- who held the open world record of 58-11½  for 10 years.

Infected by Quick’s excitement at beating the world record, Banks decided to train for a masters comeback.

So wearing the same adidas spikes he used in triple-jumping a monster wind-aided 59-8 at the Indianapolis Olympic Trials 1988, Banks took first among five competitors in San Diego, including an 18-year-old.

The effort was little noticed by the small crowd in the concrete bleachers on the opposite side of the track -- but it gained the attention of American track’s governing body in Indianapolis, which named him USATF Athlete of the Week on July 3.

USATF media staffer Tom Surber said Banks thus became the first over-40 athlete ever accorded USATF's weekly honor.

Banks’ series began with a foul. After setting the record, he jumped 46-2, passed (to catch his breath), jumped 45-7 1/4 and concluded with a 46-4. His best jump -- at 14.55 meters -- is worth nearly 55-4 when age-graded.

He used a 117-foot approach instead of the 150-foot approach of his youth.  He says he now weighs 194 pounds -- well off his 166 during his WR days.

“I've lost 6 pounds in two weeks,” said Banks, a Japanese-fluent lawyer with a sports consulting business who helped Osaka in its failed bid to host the 2008 Olympics.  “If I lose another 14 pounds, I could probably jump over 50 feet.”

An intermediate goal would be to beat the best M45 indoor triple jump ever -- 48-7 1/2 by fellow UCLA alum Milan Tiff in 1995.

A witness to Banks’ record jump in San Diego was Arnie Robinson, the 1976 Olympic long jump champion who is recovering from severe injuries after his car was broadsided by a wrong-way driver in August 2000. Robinson was thrilled for his longtime friend.

  “I think it's great,” Robinson said. “It’s one of the most wonderful things I’ve seen since my accident.”

Nobody was doing the rhythmic clapping that became Banks’ trademark in the 1970s and 1980s. (And which he now likens to a poisonous performance-enhancing drug.)

Indeed, few people in the stands were aware that the man in the yellow shorts and T-shirt was a National Track and Field Hall of Famer.

An hour and a half later, Banks turned to the high jump. Using his familiar three-step straddle approach, he cleared 1.60, 1.65 and 1.70 on his first tries, 1.75 on his second and 1.80 (5-11) on his second before failing three times at 1.85.  In his open days, he said, he cleared 6-10 with three steps in a meet and 7-0 in practice.

Now a volunteer jumps coach at La Costa Canyon High School in Carlsbad, California, where he lives, Banks confessed, “Always the first meet is kind of scary. . . . I want to go over 50 feet, but I’m going to have to have competition.

“The technique is still there, but I’m not strong enough to hold my body up. If (the crowd  had) been clapping, I probably would have killed myself.”

Showing scars on his lower legs from the tremendous pounding of his Indianapolis jumps, Banks said of the cadence clapping: “It wasn’t a gimmick for me. It was the real thing.  I’d go crazy and get  hurt.”

Banks has undergone surgery to repair his legs, but he put competition on the back burner after his last meet in September 1992 -- in Japan, where between 1989 and 1992 he was a professor at a Japanese college, teaching law and sports. In 1992-93, he worked for Southern California Electric Co. and in 1994 he was deputy venue director of the World Cup soccer tournament.

He  parlayed that job into one (from 1994 to 1996) as director of athlete services for the Atlanta Olympic Games. Since then, he’s owned his own company, done sports consulting -- and advised Stockhom  and Osaka on their Olympic bids.

But those roles receded into the background June 30, when Banks took his baby steps back into track with a foot-long improvement of the world M45 record.

Relaxing on the grass after his efforts, Banks  was approached by an official bearing his prize -- a small gold medal hanging from a short ribbon.

Handed the hardware, Banks read aloud to himself its inscription.

“Hey, San Diego champion!” he said with genuine excitement. “I am the man now. This is so cool!”