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| Scott Sellers talks with K-State track and field coach Cliff Rovelto during practice. Staff photo by Rod Mikinski. |
It's for those reasons Rovelto makes his own argument for a participant in the discussion.
"When you are drawing comparisons to athletes in team sports, if the estimation is made based on contributions over a four- or five-year period, I think it has to be an athlete from a sport that got to a championship or a major bowl, or something at the national level," Rovelto said. "In track and field, or any other individual sport, you can do that without a team."
And why does Rovelto think the greatest athlete must be someone who competed on a national stage?
"People tend to look at how you perform on a national level, and he had eight opportunities to make it to the national meet — he has done that," Rovelto said. "He has had eight opportunities to be an All-American, —he has done that — and had eight opportunities to be a national champion — and he won three of them."
No matter what people say about Sellers, who came to K-State from Katy, Texas, holding the national high school high jump record at 7-feet-5.3, he remains humble.
"When I first hear that, I think that it's silly and kind of ridiculous," Sellers said, "but I have been very fortunate to perform well thanks to my hard work and (Rovelto's) coaching, and for that I was able to win eight All-Americans and three national championships."
With his K-State career finished, Sellers is planning on continuing his training in Manhattan, as many former Wildcats have, so he can continue to work with Rovelto. Sellers' goal, and reason to stay around, is the 2012 Olympic games.
When Sellers chose to attend K-State, he picked one with a strong history of high jumpers, such as recent Olympians Ed Broxterman (1996) and Nathan Leeper (2000). It was Kyle Lancaster, a K-State high jumper when Sellers was in high school, that interested him in being a Wildcat.
After he arrived at K-State, Rovelto and Sellers devised a plan that would help him be more than just another high jumper.
"I've been working with (Rovelto) on planning a career over the past few years, rather than just four years or week-by-week," Sellers said. "There is a lot of jumpers I know, who worry about whether they will be ready to jump, but it's a big weight off my shoulders to have him do that planning."
Now Sellers, who won his first championship at the 2007 NCAA outdoor meet, will look to have a successful meet at the U.S. Championships starting Thursday in Eugene, Ore. If he finishes in the top three, he can move on to the World Championships in Berlin, Germany.
While Sellers has been averaging around 7-feet-5 per jump, Rovelto said the world standard is 7-foot-7, a height he has reached in the past.
But in three years, Sellers will have his sights set on the bigger goal, an Olympic trip, and eventually to have his name placed on one of the concrete pillars at KSU's R.V. Christian Track, special for former Cats who reached the Olympics.
"I got it up there a few times because of a world record in the pentathlon, and I am always pointing up there and showing people," Sellers said.
"But what I am shooting for is getting on that pillar with the Olympians. That's very good company to be with."
