Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player But Pender then heard that senior officers had said at a dinner that "West Point is not ready for a head black coach". With Beamon not very good at using the metric system, he turned to Boston, who had helped to train Beamon and was a friend and rival for gold. Boston explained to Beamon he had jumped over 29 feet which led to Beamon being overcome with emotion and falling to his knees. "The US team had gathered at a training site and I had a room-mate who was a triple jumper," Boston says from his home just outside Atlanta.