Introduction:
When people hear the name Johnny Mathis, they think of a velvet voice, romantic ballads and timeless songs like “Chances Are” and “Misty.” Few would imagine the singer sprinting down a track, taking off into the air and clearing a bar more than six feet high.
But long before Mathis became one of America’s most recognizable voices, he was a remarkable athlete.
Growing up in San Francisco, Mathis was far more than the boy who could sing. At George Washington High School, he competed in basketball, hurdles and track and field, eventually becoming one of the city’s standout high jumpers. What made his achievements even more extraordinary was his size. Mathis stood only about 5 feet 7 inches tall, yet he repeatedly cleared heights that would challenge athletes much taller than him.
His athletic ability followed him to San Francisco State College, where he enrolled on an athletic scholarship in 1954. He competed in both basketball and track and field while considering a future as an English and physical education teacher. At one point, Mathis cleared 6 feet 5½ inches in competition—an astonishing mark for the era and one that placed him among the best high jumpers in the region.
And then there was Bill Russell.
Before Russell became an NBA champion and basketball legend, he and Mathis were young athletes competing in the same Bay Area sporting world. Russell was much taller and already regarded as an exceptional high jumper, while Mathis was the remarkably small jumper who seemed to defy physics. Their rivalry even produced an unforgettable newspaper photograph of Russell clearing the bar while Mathis stood underneath it. The two would eventually become lifelong friends.
For Mathis, the road to an athletic career was not imaginary. He had a genuine opportunity to pursue it. He was invited to Olympic trials around the same period that another opportunity arrived—one that would completely change his life.
A Columbia Records executive had heard Mathis singing in San Francisco and sent him a telegram asking him to come to New York to make a recording. Mathis suddenly faced an extraordinary choice: continue chasing an Olympic dream, or follow the voice that had been developing since childhood.
He chose music.
The decision changed popular music forever. The athlete who once flew over a high-jump bar would instead spend decades reaching another kind of height, turning songs such as “Chances Are” into enduring standards.
Perhaps the most fascinating part of Johnny Mathis’s story is not that he became a legendary singer. It is that he could have become something completely different.
America may have gained an elite athlete.
Instead, it gained Johnny Mathis—the voice that taught generations of listeners that sometimes, the greatest leap is the one you take when you choose your destiny.