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.
"I would have liked to have won a medal; say I've got my first world championship medal,” Horton said. "But then I sat back. I was like wow, fourth-best in the world.”
Only two other American males have finished so high in the all-around at an Olympics or World Championships. Paul Hamm won Olympic gold in 2004, and Blaine Wilson placed fourth in the 1999 Worlds.
"It really motives me, knowing I came so close,” Horton said. "Only a couple of tenths away. Just a small mistake away from accomplishing something great.
"I'm just going to have to get back in the gym, polish my gymnastics, learn some harder skills, upgrade my routines. It's going to fuel me through the year, knowing I was so close.”
Horton now eyeballs the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. That's every gymnast's goal and has been Horton's since the '96 Games in Atlanta.
"That was really the first Olympics that I sat down and watched and paid attention to,” Horton said. "You sit there and watch people win gold medals and they accomplish the greatest thing in their life.
"When I realized I had an opportunity to do that, that's when I was really motivated. I want to do that. I want to be the best in the world.”
Horton has scaled a great barrier: making a name for himself. Reputations matter in gymnastics, like virtually judged sports. Now, judges no longer say who when they hear Horton.
"It's going to help tremendously,” Horton said. "Before this World Championships, I had no name. ... You really don't establish yourself until you come in probably top-10, top-five at a World Championships. Then judges start to recognize you.
"This past year, I really didn't get any help from the judges. They were hacking some routines. But the more I build my name, the more judges are going to recognize my gymnastics and maybe help me out a little bit. A tenth or two there on every event always helps.”
Horton is fearless on the apparatuses. He was born that way.
He started gymnastics when he was 4.
"I think my parents put me in because I was kind of a psycho little kid,” Horton said. "I was doing backflips and frontflips and stuff on my bed before I was even put in gymnastics.”
He climbed the pole at Target. He rode a garage door to the ceiling. Horton rides high still.
