Photo by: Kelci Carle
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"When I talk to people, I really try to emphasize just how incredible it is what he's doing. The things he is doing in the air, it's so much muscle memory, it's so much working by feel. The stuff that it takes years to do, he's picking up within weeks or days. It's really phenomenal."
-Neil Gutekunst about Dallastown high jumper Jalen Cook
Heading into the 2025 outdoor track season, Dallastown head coach Neil Gutekunst was hopeful that a first-year recruit, a senior in fact, would be able to contribute in the high jump, maybe clear 6 feet by year's end.
That 12th-grader also was thinking his place would be in the high jump but had no idea how things would go. After all, his entire life in organized sports had been all football and basketball, with the gridiron being his favorite place.
However, it was only weeks into the season before Jalen Cook's sports star was shining ever brighter, thanks to track and field.
7 feet, 3 inches ... And A State Title
Based on the response from the Memorial Day weekend crowd filling Seth Grove Stadium at Shippensburg University, all marveled at the sight of Cook sliding over the high jump bar at 7 feet, 3 inches, a height never achieved by a Pennsylvania high schooler.
Only those closest to the multi-sport athlete and the Dallastown program knew that the track and field story behind the record-setting and Class AAA gold medal performance was just months old.
"One of our assistant coaches is a Phys Ed teacher at the high school, and he looks for athletes every year, and Jalen is a pretty easy one to see," Gutekunst said of the annual recruiting efforts undertaken during the fall and winter. "Every year, he tries to convince athletes to come out and give (track and field) a try, and he's been pretty successful at it. This year, we finally got (Jalen) to come out."
Already committed to East Stroudsburg University to pursue his first love in sports, Cook had resisted the track sales pitches during his first three years at Dallastown. When approached again early in 2025, the senior decided he had time to try out another sport.
"Before, I was really trying to settle down and focus on football because I wanted to play at the next level," said Cook, who averaged more than 25 yards per catch and scored 12 touchdowns in his senior year at wide receiver. "That's why I always said 'No', just because I thought it would get in the way and take time away from that. This year, the coaches kept asking, all my boys were doing it, and my friends were trying to convince me to do it, so I thought, 'Why not?' I have one more season. I might as well."
Once the 6-1 Cook said he would compete for the Wildcat track team, the rest seemed to be a mere formality as coaches and athletes knew at least one event he would contest: high jump.
"I knew they were going to put me in high jump," Cook stated. "We had talked about it in previous years."
Based on his ability to come down with many 50/50 balls on the gridiron, the Dallastown coaches knew Cook's talents wouldn't be wasted in the high jump, but other options appeared to exist as well.
"We were hoping for the high jump (but) there are so many events that I think he could excel in on the track and in the field," Gutekunst said. "He is a solid, put-together athlete. He could probably throw a nice javelin or discus, I would think."
Despite knowing they had a talented athlete in Cook, the Dallastown staff didn't have meteorically high expectations for their newest high jumper, as Cook would have only days to learn an extremely technical event that he had never tried before.
"We were kind of seeing him as being a 6-foot, maybe a 6-2 guy," Gutekunst noted of Cook's potential. "He was also part of our 4x100 (relay), and we were planning on him doing a few other events ... but once he cleared 6-9, we thought we have a potential state champion on our hands here and we need to focus on keeping him healthy, keeping his legs fresh and that's when we decided not to throw (other events) at him."
Everything's New Here
Cook's first day as a "high jumper" was on March 10 after he spent the first official week of practice doing conditioning and sprint work. Looking back on that first day of turning his back on the sports world and jumping skyward brought a chuckle or two out of Cook.
"The first time was really weird, the way you have to do it, but I didn't get it down the first day ... at all," Cook laughed about his first attempts at the Fosbury Flop. "It's a really complicated thing to learn. The first bar was very, very low, and it was kind of just going out there and just jumping, just jumping ... no form.
"The form over the bar definitely is the hardest thing to learn because we are still learning about it now. Even in practices that we have now, I'm still trying to learn how to perfect it in getting over."
Despite the event's steep learning curve, soon the sky literally was the limit as a rookie high jumper (Cook) and a first-year event coach (Mike Gillis) quickly became a record-breaking team.
"You could tell from the start (Jalen) had a ton of natural talent," said Gillis, who coached Dallastown's high jumpers in 2025 in addition to the pole vaulters he has directed for a number of years. "It was a matter of trying to shape him and steer him in the right direction and kind of let that be unleashed."
With a scrimmage, a dual meet, and a practice PR of 6-2 on his track resume, Cook and the Wildcats headed to the Herb Schmidt Relays on April 4. By the end of that day, the senior and his coaches had an entirely different outlook on where he would go in 2025 in the high jump.
"Yeah, it was shocking to all of us there, but after that, it's been the same motto since we started - just keep going as high as we can," Cook said of his winning performance at the meet at York Suburban.
Cook's coming-out party as a top-flight high jumper started at 5-6. He needed just one attempt at his opening height, along with subsequent stops every two inches, resuming at 5-10 through 6-6. He needed all three tries to clear 6-8 before closing out his day with a successful second-attempt jump at 6-9.
In addition to the continued work on in-air technique and other facets of the high jump, Cook appeared to funnel his disappointment over the 4x100 relay's DNF that day to grab a share of the state lead.
"He doesn't like to lose things, so he was irritated that that happened and came down to the high jump (and took coaches' recommendation) to take this frustration out on the bar, take it out on this event, and man, he did," Gillis said of Cook's performance. "In that moment, he was jumping more passionately, he had this determination behind what he was doing, and that really opened the door to what his potential was and where he could go with this whole thing."
Two weeks later, in his first trip to Shippensburg for the Jack Roddick Invitational, Cook's starting height was 6-0, which was part of a perfect record through 6-8. His second try at 6-10 was good, along with his opening jump at 7-0, before his day ended with three misses at 7-2.
Just 33 days after being introduced to the high jump, Cook had entered the event's U.S. top 10 in 2025.
"There are plenty of people who can jump, like you said," Gutekunst noted. "There are plenty of athletic people that have that athleticism, and they can jump, but the things Jalen's doing in the air with his body control and body awareness is really incredible."
Gillis noted that Cook has continued to retain the knowledge and concepts of the event as presented to him and then perform accordingly when his name is called.
"The whole thing is like a perfect storm, in my mind," Gillis said. "(With some of my pole vaulters), a number can get stuck in their head. It's just a mental block, and once they're over it, it kind of opens their world to being able to go after higher bars.
"For (Jalen), I don't think he ever had that. He hasn't been involved and around the sport long enough to have those hang-ups and those hurdles. ... It just seemed like I could bring just something a little bit more each day, and all of a sudden, Jalen could pick up on it, put it in place, and do it. When he jumped 7 feet, that really just opened the door. He didn't even know how big that jump was."
Back To Shippensburg
With just one day left in the 2025 PIAA season, Tyrone Smith of Plymouth Whitemarsh remained the man on top of the high jump mountain. His clearance of 7-0.75 to claim the Class AAA gold medal in May 1985 and his 7-2.5 leap in an all-comers meet at Ursinus College the following month were the PIAA meet and all-time records.
Cook headed to the state meet off a 6-9 jump for the win in District 3. The Class AAA field was loaded as the Dallastown senior was one of four who had cleared at least that height to earn a spot in the PIAA final.
"My coach did a really good job of staying consistent and working with us to get over, form, and everything," Cook said of the end-of-year preparations. "We looked over a lot of guys and their forms and how they jumped. He pointed out what looked best for me and what type of jumper I was. He was able to show me through some videos and taught it well."
Cook entered the PIAA competition at 6-4 and took the lead for good with a first-attempt over at 6-6, with the field narrowed to the eight medalists. After a pass of 6-7, Cook was up and over at 6-8 before needing two tries at 6-9, which left him alone in the event.
He only needed one jump at 6-11 and a new state meet record 7-1 that would last only a few minutes. His 7-3 clearance elicited the roar from the stadium crowd before closing out the day with a couple of oh, so close misses at 7-5.
"It was crazy," Cook said of his state record jump. "The fact that the bar stayed. The fact that I barely clipped it. It was wild. The emotion on my face showed it, especially with the guys who were there supporting me.
"After I cleared 7-3, I was able to go over to my coach, and we just took a minute, and we were like, 'This is crazy. It's wild that this is happening." We really just soaked that in."
Heading into June, Cook's new state record is US#3 in 2025 behind Nickiah Wilkinson (7-5.25) of Florida and Alan Hanna (7-3.5) of Kansas. Cook ranks No. 28 all-time nationally.
"I still think that there's higher bars for him, even this season, which is crazy to think about," Gillis said, adding that the introduction of a ramp at practice before the state meet has been a plus. "He's very aware of what he's doing. At some of those opening heights, he can tell (when things are not right). It's great when an athlete can recognize and see that and can make that change."
Cook, who had mixed in his preseason football workouts with his high jump work, will return to action for the final time as a high schooler on June 21, competing in the Championship High Jump of the New Balance Nationals Outdoor at Franklin Field in Philadelphia.
And come 2026 as a freshman at East Stroudsburg, Cook had a straightforward answer to the question of whether he would be competing for the Warriors track and field team.
"I will be jumping," Cook said.
