Competing for the University of Oregon, Tommy dominated the college scene, winning five NCAA Division I Indoor and Outdoor Championships In doing so, Tommy is the first Oregon athlete to win NCAA Indoor and Outdoor titles in the same year and the only five-time winner, surpassing former Oregon Duck distance great Steve Prefontaine, a four-time NCAA champion.
Skipper followed the path to the University of Oregon set by his older brother Art, who as a high school senior in 1988 was the national prep record holder in the javelin (79.20m/259-10) and T&FN national boy’s Athlete of the Year. A 1993 World Championships qualifier — having taken second at the 1993 USA — Art was killed in a small plane crash near his home in Sandy (OR), in October 2001.
Tommy is also one of the most accomplished performers in Oregon and national prep history, having won four Oregon 4A state titles (3 pole vault, 1 100m) among his 10 top-eight honors in the sprints, jumps, hurdles and javelin; and garnering 2003 Athlete of the Year honors and the outdoor high school pole vault record holder (5.56m/18-3).
Although a two-time USA Junior champion; 2003 National Prep Athlete of the Year, ranking first all-time for Oregon and in the Pac-10 and seventh all-time as a collegiate outdoor — having cleared 19’ ¼” at the 2007 NCAA Western Regional Championships — Tommy has a sense (and determination) that the best is yet to come … in his quest to make the 2008 U.S. Olympic Team and to compete for the Gold Medal in Beijing.