Tramel: Horton is by far the most accomplished athlete at OU</span>

NORMAN — Jonathan Horton was 4, maybe 5 years old, walking around a Target in Greater Houston with his mom. Little Jonathan wrapped himself around a pole and started climbing. And climbing. And climbing.

Horton climbed all the way to the ceiling.

"I stayed up there like five minutes before anyone even noticed me,” Horton said.

Here we are, almost 20 years later, and Little Jonathan still is climbing and climbing and climbing, and it's taking the longest time for anyone to notice.

Horton stopped by the OU football press conference last week, a miniature among the behemoths. While the tape recorders and cameras scurried after linebackers and tight ends, Horton sat on a bar stool that he might have had to leap to land on.

Horton, so short his height is omitted from the Sooner gymnastics roster, which includes several 5-foot-6's, was a couple of days removed from finishing fourth.

In the all-around. At the World Championships.

Horton is the most accomplished athlete at OU, and it's not close. Courtney Paris might one day be considered one of the world's four best women's basketball players. Malcolm Kelly might one day be considered one of the four best passcatchers in football, but that's a long shot and a long way off.

But Horton, age 21 and with another Sooner season in which to compete, already is there. In Stuttgart, Germany, on Sept. 7, Horton finished only .2 behind bronze medalist Hisashi Mizutori of Japan.

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