Jordan Cress may not be a name many ISU fans recognize, but in Olin, Iowa, it will be a name that isn’t forgotten anytime soon.

During his senior year, Cress gave Olin High School one last hurrah by winning the state title in the high jump for Class 1A. This will be the last state title ever won by Olin because declining enrollment in the school of roughly 40 students led Olin to merge its athletic programs with Anamosa High School beginning in the 2011-12 school year.

Cress also won the state high jump title his junior year and Drake Relays title his senior year. He is the only athlete in Olin history to win back-to-back state titles as well as Olin’s only Drake Relays champion.

“It was pretty cool,” Cress said. “Not many kids can say that they were the last state champion for a school, and it made it special that I was their first Drake Relays champion that year too. I wanted to go out with a bang, and I wanted to send Olin out with a big bang.”

With the lack of a track facility at Olin, Cress was confined to running a city block as the track and practicing his high jumping inside Olin’s gymnasium on a non-regulation size high jump pit.

“We didn’t have a track or an overpowering tradition,” said Cress’ high school coach Rich Ginn. “We would just use track meets for practice, then have a little coaching as you go.”

Cress, who stands at 6 feet 4 inches, saw an improvement in high jump from 6′ to 6’3″ and placing third at state his freshman season. He said it was at that point when he really started to take high jumping seriously.

“[Junior] year, I saw a five-inch improvement,” Cress said. “Then [senior] year, I saw a two-and-a-half inch improvement added to the school record.”

Cress would win the state title his junior year with a jump of 6’7″, but his personal best would come on a cold and rainy Saturday morning at Northeast-Goose Lake during his senior year, one week before the Drake Relays.

“I’m still excited, it was a thrill,” Ginn said. “He jumped with sweats on and I just told him, jump to win. After he had won, we told him maybe he should stop so he didn’t get hurt for Drake, but he took his sweats off and kept going and finished with a jump of 6’10.25″. I was just over there on the track jumping up and down and screaming.”

Cress would go on to win the Drake Relays — the only athlete to do so in the history of Olin athletics — a week later by clearing a jump of 6’8″.

Business was unfinished, however, and in May 2011, Cress captured his second consecutive state high jump title by clearing 6’8″ once again. Ginn said it is not something he will soon forget.

“It was very special,” Ginn said. “To me, it was huge. [Being a] Drake Relays champion and [repeat state champion] was monumental.”

The same week Cress jumped his personal best of 6’10.25″ at Northeast-Goose Lake, he was offered a scholarship by ISU jump coach Pete Herber.

Herber said after talking to Ginn at the beginning of Cress’ senior season, he took an interest, and when he found out about Cress coming here as a student before considering athletics, that was just the icing on the cake.

“I was very excited,” Herber said. “The kid has a ton of ability. He just needs to develop some strength and really get more immersed in what we’re doing. He’s done a really good job of buying into everything we’re sharing. The kid has huge upside and has a ton of ability that’s going to take him places.”

Cress had a minor setback in the 2012 ISU indoor season after he tore his meniscus and was forced to redshirt the indoor season. However, he is starting to practice jumping again and said he will be ready to compete in the outdoor season with high goals in mind.

“I want to jump 7 feet,” Cress said. “It is definitely possible and the strength is back in [my knee] already. The main goal is to jump 7 feet and maybe higher than that because that’s a big landmark for any high jumper to get.”

Even though Cress is the only Olin athlete to compete in Division I athletics directly out of high school, he said he hasn’t let it affect him as a person.

“I’m not too big-headed, but [my friends and teammates] would always keep me even-keeled so I would never get too high on it,” Cress said. “I think if I didn’t have that, I might have been more of a big-headed person, but they kept me humble and it was easy because we would just joke about stuff and it would just keep me calm.”

The name Jordan Cress will be etched in Olin Lion history forever as the last state champion that the school will ever have. For Ginn, it is something that he said he was proud to be a part of and something that will be in his lasting memories.

“It was a neat relationship,” Ginn said about his time spent coaching Cress. “Every time I can talk about him and high jump, I’m excited.”