Jesse Williams, American high jumper
Jesse Daniel Williams (born December 27, 1983 in Modesto, California) is an American high jumper and the 2011 World Champion. He was ranked the #2 jumper in the world, outdoors, in 2010 and #1 in the world in 2011. He has jumped 53 centimeters above his height, a differential which places him among the top 20 jumpers of all time.
Williams attended high school at Broughton High School in Raleigh, North Carolina and attended North Carolina State University for one year (2003) before transferring and finishing his student-athlete career at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles where he won the NCAA track and field championships indoors 2005 and 2006 and outdoors in 2005 and 2006 becoming one of the few people to ever do so in the history of NCAA track and field. He is the school and Pac-10 record holder with a leap of 2.32 meters (7' 7 1/4").
He won three North Carolina state high school 4A titles while attending Needham Broughton High School. He held the North Carolina high school state record in the High Jump with a jump of 2.21 meters (7' 3") until Tanner Anderson (East Burke High School/Duke University) jumped 2.22 (7'3.25").