Raising the Bar: The Alma Richards Story opens in theaters April 24. CLICK HERE to learn more and request that the film comes to your city.

We always joked in my household growing up that there is nothing more earnest than the “first annual” of something. The “First Annual Family Lip Sync” or the “First Annual Memorial Day Bake-Off” not only distinguish themselves by being a beginning attempt, but have the untried confidence to say, “we want this to go so well that we’re already planning to do it again next year.” It is scary to declare such faith in an unknown future and yet every event that has become an absolute institution in the world started as someone’s earnest first try.

Many attempts were made to revive the ancient Greek Olympic Games as a coordinated international event throughout the 19th century, but it wasn’t until Baron Pierre de Coubertin brought those most invested in the effort from around the world to Paris to meet, that the concept become collaborative enough to create the international committee that we know today. In fact, the first modern Olympic Games took place in Athens in 1896, the same year that Utah became a state.

But it would be another 16 years before that fledging little state would send its own athlete to the Olympic games. That athlete’s inspiring story is the subject of the latest film from T.C. Christensen, Raising the Bar: The Alma Richards Story.

Alma was a boy from a rural part of Utah that was even more rural then. He floundered trying to find direction in life, dropping out of school in eighth grade and was resigned to a life of ranching. But just as our most cherished events and institutions are the product of years of the earnest efforts of those who are dedicated to them, Alma found his way to remarkable accomplishments that were the product of the earnest efforts and loving dedication of mentors who saw his potential when he didn’t.

That mentorship and the way we are each built by the community we came from is at the heart of this film.

Yes, it was with the help of dedicated coaches and persistent teachers that Alma Richards discovered that his penchant for jumping the rustic fences of his youth might actually be a unique skill. So unique, in fact, that it took him to the Stockholm Olympics of 1912 competing for the gold medal in high jump.

But making it over that bar was not the only obstacle Alma faced in his Olympic journey. Those that should have been his teammates offered much more criticism than camaraderie for a boy they saw as a little too country and a little too churchy. But doing a lot with a little and doing it with integrity is what made Alma Richards a stand-out.

And it’s also what makes Alma’s great nephew T.C. Christensen a stand-out. Yes, the filmmaker has a personal connection to this story of the man he heard about throughout his childhood, from his grandmother, who was Alma’s sister. And like Alma, T.C. has been able to do a lot with a little: bringing so many inspiring Latter-day Saint stories to the screen on scrappy, humble budgets.

Stories from so long ago seem not to be so long ago when seen through the eyes of just a generation or two of family history or the focused eyes of a skilled filmmaker.

In fact, as the movie went into production and Ali Durham, the actress who plays Alma’s mother, diligently researched her role, she discovered that her husband was related to her character as well and that her father-in-law had Alma Richards as his science teacher in high school. It’s a small world, where people like Alma remind us that we can make a big impact.

Paul Wuthrich, who you might recognize from T.C.’s previous film, Escape from Germany, took on the challenge of portraying this natural born Olympian. In fact, when Paul came to meet with T.C. about the project, he was asked to run up and down the street and jump a few times, and was then asked, “great, can you film in three weeks for a film about an Olympic high jumper?”

Wuthrich, indeed, had to lean on some of his own natural athleticism with so little time to prepare, but the process left him in awe of Alma:

[Alma] is an incredible athlete…He doesn’t jump normally. The back flop hadn’t been invented yet. All these guys had to land on their feet. So, I was out there jumping—I could only clear maybe 4 feet. So, to think that he was jumping and clearing 6’4”, the way he jumped, means his hips were probably close to 7 feet in the air.

It was just very eye-opening, as I started training and started trying to do this, to realize that he was jumping over my head in such a weird, bizarre style. Some of those athletes on the [film’s] Olympic team were actually BYU high-jumpers and they said the same thing, they said, ‘this guy was nuts’.

Yes, Raising the Bar: The Alma Richards Story truly highlights the unique strength and determination of this unlikely, singular person. And yet, his search to find his purpose and his place is one that we can all relate to. Wuthrich said of the experience, “I remember reading the script and, as somebody who has struggled to find my calling in life, it just resonated. [We all have] this yearning to go and do something and be somebody and then we get out into the world and we find that it was all those things that we wanted to leave behind that really make us who we are.”

Yes, we are all a product of those that formed us, taught us, and trained us. And though Alma was just taking his next best opportunity and listening to any guidance he could get along the way, he laid the groundwork to inspire and motivate many that would follow after.

There were 25 athletes with Utah ties on the most recent Team USA competing in the 2024 Paris Olympics. We take for granted that somebody had to be the first.

Raising the Bar: The Alma Richards Story opens in theaters April 24. CLICK HERE to learn more and request that the film comes to your city.