Leaps of fate: Warren’s Jean-Paul finds athletic focus
Warren assistant boys track coach Rocco Oddo couldn’t believe his eyes.
Back in February, in the school’s field house, senior Isaac Jean-Paul had just landed the first standing broad jump of his life.
The distance: 10 feet.
That’s not just good.
That’s NFL-Combine good.
“Isaac just showed up that day, on a day we happened to be testing kids’ skills,” Oddo recalled at a recent Blue Devils practice. “I remembered seeing him in our cafeteria, wandering around. Quiet kid. Respectful kid. But that was the first time I saw him in our field house.
“We made him run a 40 (-yard dash), too. He ran a 4.5.”
Some perspective: brand-new Carolina Panthers quarterback Cam Newton ran a 4.59 40 at the 2011 NFL Combine, also in February.
Jean-Paul had never suited up for a track meet before that impromptu field day in a field house. Basketball was his love. Basketball made him tingle. He wanted to play hoops in the winter, spring, summer and fall.
In his sixth-grade season, at Lincoln Junior High in Skokie, Jean-Paul drove the lane hard, through traffic, and plopped in a finger-roll bucket with 2 seconds left. It was the game-winner. His team was the clear favorite that day — “to lose by 20 points,” he said.
“My dream, since I was little, was to play in the NBA,” added the 5-foot-9½, 142-pounder, who made Warren’s freshman basketball team but got cut as a sophomore and junior.
Oddo’s dream, in February, was to welcome Jean-Paul as a member of Warren’s varsity track and field team. But Jean-Paul wasn’t sure his mother, Rosemary, would let him jump and fly around ovals this spring.
“I called his mom, right away,” Oddo said. “I told her, ‘Look, I’ve been coaching track for 25 years, and, believe me, your son is an elite athlete, a special athlete.’ Then I told her, ‘Track is his sport; he could go far in it.’ ”
Rosemary gave her speedy son the green light, a son who would soon make awe-struck track fans stop, gawk, applaud.
“Our track coaches — all of them — let out a collective sigh of relief,” Oddo said.
The ensuing challenge for Warren’s track coaches, all of them? Where to put their budding Blue Devil in the lineup.
“Before the season, we pretty much tried him in everything,” said Warren assistant coach Walter Alvarenga. “Guess what? Isaac was good at so many things, in practically every event. Where would Isaac be able to score the most points for us?
“We had to figure that out.”
Jean-Paul made his debut, as a high jumper, in a dual at Libertyville on April 11. He cleared 6 feet, easily.
Ten days later, at the Downers Grove South Invite, something went down: Warren’s high-jump school mark of 6-5. Jean-Paul catapulted his wispy frame up and over a bar, set 6-6 (Michael Jordan’s height) above the ground.
“Amazing. That day was ... amazing,” Alvarenga recalled. “He went 6-0, 6-2, 6-4. And then 6-6. Here he is, a guy who had never jumped in a competition before this year, popping these great jumps, over and over.
But The Isaac Jean-Paul Story isn’t just about a talented, quick-learning, driven athlete.
It’s also about a teen who isn’t allowed to drive a car.
‘Focused’ on goals
Jean-Paul has juvenile retinoschisis, a disease that causes progressive loss of central and peripheral vision due to degeneration of the retina. It’s a topic he’d rather not discuss, but he does so, when it surfaces, because he has a surplus of polite genes.
Teammates have asked him about the impairment.
“He’ll talk about it if you bring it up, but not for long,” said classmate Troi Holley, a hurdler. “He doesn’t let it get in his way. It’s a challenge, I’m sure. But Isaac is determined, as a person and as an athlete.”
Jean-Paul’s success, as an athlete, continued in May. At the Lake County meet, on May 6, he won the long jump (personal-best 22-1½) and finished third in the high jump (6-5). At the North Suburban Conference meet, one week later, he landed a third-place long jump (21-11).
And at the Class 3A Palatine sectional, last Friday, the rookie trackster, who also served as a leadoff relay leg this spring, qualified for this weekend’s state meet in Charleston in the long jump (22-1, first place) and high jump (6-5, second place).
“Five weeks ago ... Isaac started jumping only five weeks ago,” Warren head coach Bill Dawson said at the sectional. “Think about that. And look where he is now in this sport, where he’s going. Nothing fazes him. I’ve never seen him intimidated at meets. Isaac should be the poster child for ‘Try something new; you might be great at it.’
“I have a feeling I’ll be getting a lot of calls, from interested college coaches, a few days after the state meet.”
Jean-Paul and his family waited anxiously for a phone call from Isaac’s father, Hennry, after a 7.0 magnitude earthquake devastated Haiti on January 12, 2010. Hennry was in the republic then, tending to a family mater. It was estimated that 300,000 people had perished.
Hennry was missing.
Hours grew to days.
Days became weeks.
Three weeks, to be exact.
“I tried, really hard, not to think about it during those weeks,” Isaac recalled.
The good news — no, the super news — came via text message, from Rosemary to Isaac. Isaac was on a bus at the time, en route to a P.E. bowling class.
What he read: “Your father was found.”
What he felt: “Relief,” he said. “Later, my dad told me stories, told me what he went through after the earthquake. He donated a lot of his clothes to victims.”
Isaac Jean-Paul stood patiently at a pre-state practice Tuesday, waiting for classmate Kyle Ward to complete a series of long jumps. Ward had also qualified for state in the event (21-7½). When it was his turn, Jean-Paul, super serious, sprinted down the runway and then cannonballed himself quietly through the air.
Oddo, stationed near the end of Warren’s long-jump sand pit, stood and watched.
So did Alvarenga.
Both must have wondered, more than 100 times this spring, “What if IJ-P had decided to come out for track as a freshman?”
Jean-Paul, though, can’t stand the “What If” game.
“I don’t like to look at the past,” he admitted. “I like to look forward.”
The young man with juvenile retinoschisis sees himself at a college in the fall, jumping and soaring and learning.
That NBA dream?
Ancient history.
“My dream now is to compete in the Olympics,” he said. “I really enjoy track, and my coaches have been so helpful. I know it’s going to take hard work ... a lot of hard work. But I’m ready for that.
“My mom has taught me the importance of hard work. She has also taught me how important it is to respect people ... all people.”
A person, midway through that same pre-state practice, brought up Jean-Paul’s 4.5 40.
“I didn’t run a 4.5 that day,” he said, with a straight face. “I ran a 4.58.”
Alvarenga smiled, after hearing Jean-Paul had clarified that fast feat in February.
“Typical Isaac ... humble, gracious,” the assistant coach said. “He doesn’t want anybody to think he’s faster than he is.”
He probably also doesn’t want anybody to realize this: Jean-Paul’s time in the 40 — the slower, accurate one he reported — was still faster than Cam Newton’s NFL-Combine time.