Caroline Weems

By Ralph Hardy

In Memphis, Tennessee, home of Elvis and Graceland, there’s a Whole Lotta of Shakin’ Goin’ On: three-time state champion pole vaulter Caroline Weems has committed to the University of Tennessee!

Like many female vaulters, Caroline started as a gymnast. After five years of competitive gymnastics, the reflective middle-schooler realized she might not be able to compete at the D1 level, but she wanted to be a collegiate athlete. A friend had made a successful transition to pole vaulting, and her father knew Jason Vogt, the coach of Memphis Vault Club, so she tried it. She was 13 years old and at the end of her eighth grade academic year. She cleared 6’6’’ her first day and was hooked. An all-around athlete, Caroline also played soccer and danced ballet, but she ultimately traded her gymnastics grips for a pair of spikes and committed to the rigorous training that leads to becoming a highly sought-after D1 recruit.

Caroline attends St. Agnes, an all-girls private Catholic school. She’s one of 25 girls on the track team out of a class of 350, in the DII-AA division. Caroline holds the Tennessee indoor state record 3.98m (13’3/4”) and is the highest vaulting girl ever at Memphis Vault Club. There she lifts weights or vaults several times a week, practicing and competing alongside vaulters from the Memphis metro area.

Caroline has a 4.9 GPA and is the president of her class for the second year. Although Caroline has pursued pole vaulting with her trademark intensity, she’s a well-rounded teenager. She enjoys art, movies, and music, and has lately taken up climbing. She considers herself a goal-oriented person and has found that the times in her life she’s been most successful are when she has a clear goal and reminds herself of it daily. But coping with the (literal and figurative) ups and down of pole vaulting can be a challenge, she says.

“I have struggled with maintaining motivation in pole vault. I have emotional peaks of intensity, and it is hard to avoid coasting after accomplishing a goal. To help with this, I write my goals down and put them in a place where I see them every day. This keeps me hungry and helps me push every practice. To maintain belief in myself, I act like I am the best. I struggle with confidence, so the best thing for me is to fake it. At a big meet like New Balance Nationals, where there are many people better than me, I remind myself that I belong and I am meant to be there; it’s not an accident.”

At the 2023 New Balance Indoor Nationals, Caroline didn’t have to fake it to make it. Competing alongside 40 of the best female pole vaulters in the country, Caroline grabbed her go-to 13’160 pole and vaulted 3.80m (12’51/2”), finishing 8th, with the fourth highest clearance for the day.

As pole vaulters know, the sport is addictive. Caroline will attest to that. “I like how it motivates me to always be wanting more. After you do the best you’ve ever done, the bar still raises and you have to try even harder. The sport is so challenging and rewarding, and it is amazing how supportive everyone is, even the people I compete against.”

Like most successful high school vaulters, Caroline finds inspiration and motivation from the elite vaulters competing on the national circuit. For Caroline, it’s Alina McDonald, a 4.65m vaulter. According to Caroline, Alina has “one of the best inversions and I watch her jump almost every day and try to emulate that.”

Having established herself as one of the best vaulters in the state, Caroline soon found herself on the radar of college track and field coaches from around the country. She made official visits to University of Minnesota, Penn State University, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and University of Tennessee, but one school checked all of her boxes.

“UT has everything I am looking for in a college,” she says. “It’s a big school with a lot of pride, and there is a strong athlete community. They have great resources and amazing facilities. The new coaching staff under the direction of Duane Ross is dedicated to improving the program. I look forward to training under Mark Hollis alongside elite pole vaulters. I also love how Tennessee values women’s sports. The track and field program is on the rise, and I look forward to being a part of it. I will study Architecture, and UT has a very good program with many opportunities for jobs and internships. I knew UT would be the place where I can improve athletically and achieve my academic goals.”

We asked Jason Vogt to reflect on Caroline.

“I knew that first year she was going to be special. Covid robbed her of her freshman season and half of her sophomore year so she never got to see how good she was early on. Covid hurt everyone obviously, but Caroline jumped high enough freshman year for New Balance Nationals Freshman division, but the meet was cancelled. I still believe that halted her development because she had to wait another year and a half for her first national meet. She needed a national stage to really see her potential. Once she experienced it, there was a dramatic change in her drive and hunger. I always knew it was there but I knew she needed to be in the moment to understand.

I’m most proud of her mental transformation. She’s always been a great kid and most things came naturally to her. Pole vault is a constant challenge because she has to work really hard to raise her mental game. She slowly learned how to raise expectations and mitigate meet stress. She learned how to gain instant access to her “alpha” without ever losing herself in success. She has zero ego. Actually, the opposite. I had to help her acquire some ego so she could buy into her potential. Club records immediately started to fall.

Fast forward to indoor states her senior year. We set the goal: break the state record in the state meet where the previous record was set. There was never a doubt in my mind that day. The theme of the last few weeks going into that meet was “All gas, no brakes”.

I couldn’t be prouder because Caroline finally got her moment: 6 days a week for 4 years and 1 jump. Ask her if it was worth it. I know the answer.”

Photo credit: 901HSSports