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Your new (longer) pole; the first jump. You can do this.
TIME TO FLY
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CONTENTS
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FROM THE EDITOR
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2016 USATF INDOOR NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS
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THE LADY AZTECS CONTINUING COACH FOX’S LEGACY
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FROM THE GROUND UP: A GUIDE FOR THE RETURNING MASTERS POLE VAULTER
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TRUST IN YOUR COACH
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14 16 26
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Cover photo by Troy White
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Representing the magazine with a tattoo at the pole vault summit
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FROM THE EDITOR Welcome to February, everyone! One of the coldest months of winter, thank goodness it is the shortest month! Indoor season has kicked off and track season has officially started! We have a lot of Reno photos for you this month. We hope that everyone had a great time!
In this issue we have a quick little article talking about the 2016 USATF Indoor Championships in March. This meet will be an awesome one to watch. For those of you trying to qualify, good luck! If you do not know anything about this competition for pole vault, we have given you the basic information you will need to know. The qualifying standards for this meet should bring in some great competition of elites and college athletes. Don’t miss this meet next month, you will get to watch the best-of-thebest in the country compete for a national title!
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Also this month we have an article on why you need to put all your trust in your coach. Your coach is there to make you the best you can be. They can see what your vault looks like and are able to determine the best thing for you to do. They are not going to tell you something you should not do. They want you to be your best. What you need to do is trust what they say and do it. They believe in you as their athlete, and you need to believe in them as your coach. Flip on over to this article—this information could really help you. We have a new writer: Mr. Mike Soule. Mike is a masters pole vaulter and he has written an article to our post-collegiate/master pole vaulters. He writes that if you want to start pole vaulting again, no matter how long you have been retired, you should do it. In his article, he tells you how to get started. He started vaulting again after being out of it for a while, and he loves it.
Remember how much you used to love it back-in-the-day? You will love it just the same once you start back up! Check out his article—it is a great read!
On our cover this month is the San Diego State University lady Aztecs. Coach Richard Fox has built quite the legacy at SDSU and his lady vaulters are sure to make him proud in the upcoming season. This school has so much to offer its pole vaulters. Coach Fox has produced so many great vaulters and has many success stories in his 21 seasons as the pole vault coach. This school’s story is not one you will want to miss, so jump on over to this article and enjoy! That is all for now! Now that season has started we hope to see all your improvements. We couldn’t keep going if it weren’t for all of you who support us. Until next month, fly high! Editor Sadie Lovett Sadie@vaultermagazine.com
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WWW.VAULTERMAGAZINE.COM Shawn Barber and Bob Seagren
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MAGAZINE Mary Saxer 2016 Pole Vault Summit
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WWW.VAULTERMAGAZINE.COM Andrew Irwin 2016 Pole Vault Summit
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2016 USATF INDOOR NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS By: Vaulter Magazine
Next month, March 11th thru the 12th, the Oregon Convention Center will host the 12th USATF Indoor National Championships.
All athletes can qualify for this meet as long as their qualifying marks were at a USATF approved meet. Guidelines for this meet is that all qualifying marks must be made by February 28th, 2016 on an indoor track.
Jake Blankenship 2016 Pole Vault Summit
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For pole vault, there will be one flight of 16 competitors for both men and women. Men will compete Friday the 11th at 3:45 PM and women will compete Saturday the 12th at 4:10 PM. The qualifying height for men is 5.45m or 17’10.5, so there should be some great competition at this meet with college and elite vaulters competing for the Championship title. For women to qualify, they need to jump at least 4.30m or 14’1¼. Many collegiate women have already jumped this height or higher in the early meets of the indoor season. Most elite women vaulters are consistently over this height and higher. At the Reno Pole Vault Summit, we saw some great competitors on
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both the men’s and women’s side. There are many vaulters over the qualifying heights, and it is very likely that there will be more than just 16 competitors on both sides. For all the vaulters who are not amateur, USATF is giving out prize money to 1st thru 4th place. First place will receive $5,000, second $3,000, third $1,250, and fourth $750.
Tickets for this even go on sale Thursday, February 4th. The prices range from $5 to $17 depending on whether you are buying an adult or youth ticket and if you choose to be in the reserved section. For those who do not want to fly out to Oregon, and would rather stay home and watch the meet coverage, USATF will be posting live feeds of the competitions on their website. USATF has yet
to announce if any TV stations will be covering the meet.
The 12th Championship should be a great meet to watch. With so many pole vaulters over 18 feet and 14 feet, the competition will be tough. With some collegiate athletes well over the qualifying heights, elite athletes will have to bring their A game because some of these college vaulters are going to give the elites a run-for-their-money! Logan Cunningham 2016 Pole Vault Summit
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WWW.VAULTERMAGAZINE.COM Taylor Alexander 2016 Pole Vault Summit
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THE LADY AZTECS CONTINUING COACH FOX’S LEGACY By: Sadie Lovett
Just a couple weeks after the Reno Pole Vault Summit, the San Diego State University pole vault crew is now in the middle of their busy indoor season.
Coaches Rich Fox and Shelia Burrell
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This Mountain West Conference team has been training hard since September in hopes for another successful indoor and outdoor championship. Last year, the Aztec pole vaulters had a clean sweep of the medals both indoors and outdoors: indoors they took 1, 2, and 3. Whereas outdoors, they took 1 thru 4: “This accomplishment had not been done in our conference since Fresno State in 1996. There was a 19 year gap between sweeping the
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WWW.VAULTERMAGAZINE.COM Bonnie Draxler at UCLA
medal’s podium,” says 21 season Coach Richard Fox.
For these ladies to clean sweep the podium, they had to compete against tough competitors from Boise State and Nevada. At this meet, Seniors Kortney Ross and Holly Waseloff jumped lifetime PRs to place 3rd and 4th. These jumps also qualified them for the NCAA Regional Championships. “Only two teams in our conference have gone 1 thru 4 in an event: Colorado State in the discus and New Mexico in the mile,” says Coach Fox.
His Legacy
This is not the only success story that Coach Fox can tell. Out of the 21 seasons he has been the pole vault coach, Coach Fox has been building a legacy since 1996. When coach joined the lady Aztecs as the volunteer coach in 1996, he knew that the NCAA was going to add women’s pole vault in 1998. Because of him, SDSU was brought to the forefront in collegiate pole vault as one of the nation’s premier programs.
Over the years, Coach Fox has built a program the he is very proud of—a program
where his vaulters’ combined scores alone out-score their competitors at the MW Championship meets. Every single pole vaulter on the SDSU pole vault Top Ten List, for both indoor and outdoor, has been his athlete. Every one of his athletes is taught solid technique as well as lots of gymnastic drills, strength training, and conditioning.
Coach Fox not only can coach pole vault, but he is also an outstanding cross country coach. For seven seasons, Coach Fox was an assistant cross-country coach. During these seasons, Coach Fox trained four All-Mountain West runners. Sophia Hawker, Marie Niesson, and Lital Azulay all earned First Team All-MW and All District Honors. Christal
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Cuadra earned Second Team All-MW Accolades. Hawker also competed at the NCAA Cross Country Championships.
FUN FACT DID YOU KNOW
Shawn Barber’s 6 meter jump at the Reno Pole Vault Summit not only earned his way into the pole-vault-famous “6 Meter Club,” but also made the 21 year old the youngest vaulter to have ever cleared that height.
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At the Mountain West Championships, Coach Fox’s vaulters have left their mark on almost every record and honor. SDSU has had 20 pole vault champions and 14 runner-up places. They have set six indoor MW Championships records and five outdoor Championship records. They currently hold the MW indoor All-Time Record, the MW outdoor All-Time Record, the MW indoor Championship meet record, and the MW outdoor Championship meet record. At the MW Championships, SDSU vaulters have been awarded the Outstanding Female Performance of the Meet on four different occasions: 2004 indoor – Asay, 2005 indoor – Balentine, 2007 indoor and 2010 outdoor – Bagan.
In all of Coach Fox’s seasons, there have been 12 indoor records and 11 outdoor records. He has had 59 qualifications to NCAAs and 19 of them have competed in finals. Six of them have earned All-American honors. Coach Fox has coached vaulters, 19 combined times, at the USA National Track and Field Championships. He also
had two vaulters compete at the 2000 Olympic Trials and two compete at the 2008 Olympic Trials. He has had five Freshman qualify for the USATF Junior National Meet.
Making NCAA History
During his tenure, Coach Fox coached the 5th collegiate All-Time vaulter to jump the 13 foot barrier. He coached the 14th, 16th, and 26th vaulters who broke the 14-foot mark. At this time, Bagan held the 7th All-Time NCAA mark, Balentine held the 9th best mark in the NCAA, and Erin Asay had the 11th best All-Time mark for indoors.
The SDSU program is ranked the third best program in the nation for producing 14foot vaulters. SDSU was also the first program in the nation to produce three different 14foot vaulters. This pole vault squad also ranks 3rd best for producing individual NCAA All-Americans. And if that weren’t enough, The Aztec vaulters also posted the 3rd strongest Top 10 AllTime Performance records, among the nation’s greatest colleges, for the most vaulters over 13 feet.
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Coach Fox’s History Before coach Fox became part of the Aztec team, he coached pole vault at Torrey Pines High School for one year. During this year, Coach Fox’s leading student athlete broke the school record. Coach Fox also graduated from SDSU and was a track and field athlete for four years. So he was very familiar with the Aztec team when he became a volunteer coach.
Continuing the Legacy
This season, there are two returning pole vaulters: Sophomore Bonnie Draxler and Senior Karen Snapper. Draxler is the MW Indoor Conference Champion with an indoor PR of 13’8¼ (4.17m). She is also the Outdoor Conference Silver Medalist with an outdoor PR of 13’9¼ (4.20m). Karen Snapper is a veteran Conference Championship and NCAA competitor. She has scored at the MWC Championship four times and competed at the NCAA Regional Championships twice. Snapper has an indoor PR of 13’2¼ (4.02m) and an outdoor PR of 13’2½ (4.025m). New to the squad this year are Freshman Marissa Berry, Sara Currah, and Julia Newton. “Berry is a 13’ vaulter with excellent speed, power, and
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athleticism. Berry is going to have a great impact on our conference and will be a contributor to our team,” says Coach Fox. Interesting fact about Sara and Julia: “Sara, daughter of UCLA Coach Anthony Currah, and Julia, daughter of Nebraska vaulter, both dads competed against each other at the 1984 Olympic Trials!” Maybe one day these teammates will follow in their fathers’ footsteps and compete at the Olympic Trials—it’s possible with Coach Fox’s help!
The Aztec team has three full-time coaches and two volunteer coaches alongside Coach Fox. The head coach, Shelia Burrell, is a two-time Olympian and the sprints coach, Michelle Freeman, is a three-time Olympian. To be recruited to the Aztec track and field team, Coach Fox says “we look at 12’ as the starting point for a recruited walk-on. You have to be jumping 13’ to earn a scholarship.” Along with vault practices, gymnastic drills, and
Courtney Jackson at UCSD
strength training, these pole vaulters also travel to closeby beaches on a regular basis for sand runs. On vault days, they jump on Pacer FX Carbon poles.
With indoor season underway, these ladies still have time to prepare themselves for the Indoor Championships. With many meets between now and then for practice, and then more before Outdoor Conference, these vaulters, no doubt, will make Coach Fox proud and continue his pole-vault legacy—to the MW Championships, to new PRs, to breaking records, to NCAA Regionals, and to NCAA National Championships.
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WWW.VAULTERMAGAZINE.COM Karen Snapper
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Left to right: Karen Snapper, Bonnie Draxler, WWW.VAULTERMAGAZINE.COM Sara Curran, Katherine Magill, Courtney Jackson, Marissa Berry, Julia Newton
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Katherine Magill
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Sara Curran
Marissa Berry
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FROM THE GROUND UP
A guide for the returning Masters Pole Vaulter By: “The Vaultin’ Geezer” Mike Soule M60 pole vaulter
Mike Soule
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It’s 2016, and you wake up one morning and wonder who is that old person staring back at you in the mirror. Unfortunately it’s you, and you don’t like what you see. So you decide, by gosh, this year you really are going to do something about it. The aspect of hours in the gym or putting one foot in front of the other on a treadmill for no other reason than to look and feel a little better doesn’t really appeal to you or get you motivated. You think to yourself, “Now if I had a reason to do this maybe I’d feel different about getting
back into shape.” A return to pole vaulting might be the answer.
Most of us who have had years and maybe decades away from pole vaulting remember how much fun it was and wonder if we could possibly do it again. The question is, how do we get back to pole vaulting after all of these years? This column is designed to give you some insight and directions to help you return to the sport if you are considering it. I hope you can benefit from its inclusion in Vaulter Magazine.
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You will want to develop a plan of attack and stick to it for a successful return. This will include workouts, jump days and meet attendance. What I will suggest in this article is just one of many ways to return to our sport, but those who have followed my suggestions and regimen are now out having fun and jumping well. Obviously, a training regimen needs to be put in place. If you are planning to go to a gym, make sure that it is within a 5-minute drive from your house. The close proximity is important from a standpoint of making it easy for you to get there. Also, keep in mind that if you are paying for the gym membership you are more likely to go. I have tried it both ways and I found that when I belonged to a gym I went. When I had the home gym set up it was used more as a place to hang clothes than to actually use for a workout. There are some great workout routines on Doug “Bubba” Sparks website. (www.bubbapv.com.) Because pole vaulting utilizes more fast-twitch muscles than slow twitch, your focus should be on fast-twitch muscle training. Once again, Bubba’s workouts are geared towards those types of exercises. Endurance
training is helpful but if it’s a matter of choosing between endurance training and fasttwitch muscle training, I would suggest the latter.
I will assume that some of you reading this are in the seniors age groups, which begin at 50. That being said, training for the 50 and above athlete is much different than those who are younger. No matter the age, the masters athlete still has an 18-yearold brain sitting on top of that masters body. We must learn to train and compete with that realization in mind. Where the pole vault is concerned, for the above 50-athlete, a 60 to 65 percent effort in your head is about a 100 percent effort on your body. Those who I have worked with call it “Mike’s rule of 65.” Our biggest “enemy” and competitor is the body we live in. Back in the 60’s and 70’s, we all could jump all-dayevery-day. Ain’t so anymore. Therefore, one of the things we have to take into account is figuring out how far our body will be able to go before we break it. Then we must make sure we don’t go past 90 percent of that distance or effort. That philosophy must be considered throughout the upcoming pole-vault comeback career. For us, there is no more “never quitting on a
miss” or “just a couple of more jumps”. That’s when we get injured. It takes two to three times longer to recover from injury than it did in our teens and twenties. Our bodies will talk to us. It’s so important to understand its language and listen to it. Be smart, train and compete smart and when you get injured, (and you will get injured) you’re recovery time will be minimal.
Goal setting is very important, but it also has to be realistic. I suggest two immediate goals that help force you down the road to your comeback. I don’t mean setting a goal of being able to jump a certain height by a certain day. That will come later. These first two goals are simpler than that but extremely important and must be done now. Goal number 1 is to pick a day (not too far off) to get off the ground. In other words get a pole in your hands and jump. It’s important to do that now otherwise you won’t have the incentive to get back pole vaulting again. At the same time go to your local USATF or local track club website and find the soonest track meet that will be held and sign up for it. Send in the money and commit yourself to going. It doesn’t matter whether or not you no height at that
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FUN FACT DID YOU KNOW
Bob Seagren, Pole Vault Summit keynote speaker, broke the outdoor world record six times and the indoor record eight times. He won one Olympic gold medal in pole vault and one silver medal. He has a PR of 5.63m or 18’5¾.
meet or if you make a bar or two. Once you’ve gone to your first meet, you will be back in the fold and more than likely hooked on this event again. I think these two things are so important for the comeback pole vaulter. With those two dates on your calendar, you will make yourself go to the gym. You will make yourself go for your run in the morning or at night. You will go to the track and get the jumps in. You will make yourself do these things because you have a meet to get ready for. Finally, really enjoy the experience, the camaraderie and the fun of competing in an event that very few are able to do.
The following suggestions are your first steps to your comeback. You must understand that you probably won’t jump as high as you did in high school or college. That’s OK. I was a 12’6er in high school, and I have two chances of getting there again: Slim and none, and Slim left town quite some time ago. I will tell you this, though, I have had some 8 and 9 foot jumps that make me feel just like I did over 45 years ago when I could jump higher. The key thing is to make coming back to pole vaulting the total reason for everything you do from this point on and have a blast doing it.
Your to do list: 1. 2. 3. 4.
Lock in on a get off the ground day Lock in your first meet day Put www.usatf.org/ in your google favorites Put, www.polevaultpower.com/index.php in your favorites and sign in. 5. Join Masters websites and Facebook pages 6. Go to www.bubbapv.com for vault specific work out routines 7. Contact me at vaultingeezer@yahoo.com to have personal questions answered Next up, Find a place to jump and train
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Pole Vault Clinics & Camps
“The Unfair Advantage!” 803.315.5998
www.ShealyAthletics.com
85 SCHS State Champions, 11 National Champions, and 3 “Team USA” (World Team) since 1998.
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Jenny Wartinbee Shooting the T-Shirt Canon into the Summit Crowd.
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TRUST IN YOUR COACH
By: Vaulter Magazine
It can be scary putting your trust into one person— trusting them to tell you what to change, where to put your standards, what pole to jump on, where your grip should be. You already need to have the confidence to trust in yourself to do this crazy sport, now you also have to believe in someone else and know that they are going to tell you the best thing to do. And what they tell you can be the difference of making the bar or not.
You are on your third attempt, you need this height, and your coach tells you to move your run back 6 inches. Do you move back? You already feel like you have a free takeoff. Yes, you move back those 6 inches. Despite how you
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feel, your coach knows that you always ‘bring it’ on your third attempts and that if you don’t move back, you will run yourself under. Your coach knows you. They communicate with you every practice, after every jump, and they listen to what you have to say about how each jump feels. But they can also see your vault. You can say “I felt out” or “disconnected with the box at take-off,” when your coach sees that you are leaning back at take-off and don’t need to move your step forward, but need to jump forward and up. They can see that you are knocking the bar off because you are flagging out when you turn over, and need to stay tight to your pole.
Your coach can see if your pole is too soft or too stiff. If they tell you to adjust your grip, do it. If you think you need to be holding higher on your pole, but your coach says not to move up, don’t move up. You need to trust that what they are telling you is what is best for your performance an improvement. Watch any elite athlete. Watch any successful athlete. Watch them with their coach. Watch Renaud, or Sam, or Shawn, or Sandi, or Mary, and you will see that the only time you will see/hear them talk is to answer or ask a question. Sometimes when they are talking, it is because their coach asks something like “what did you feel in that jump?” Elites
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have to trust in their coach because their coach is going to help them reach their goals. Vaulters can’t feel everything they are doing wrong in their vault. Their coaches can see what needs to change. The most successful athletes are the athletes who are coachable and trust their coach.
Marry Saxer and Coach Danny Wilkerson
It’s ok to ask questions. Like “what does holding lower do?” And you will learn that sometimes making the pole stiffer by holding lower will give you more pop on top. Asking questions can help you improve too. Understanding what you are doing can sometimes help you do it better. For example: your coach keeps moving your step to get you to jump forward and up at take-off. If you know why they are having you do this, it will help you do it. You will know what the goal of the exercise is. Rather that feeling out and not understanding why they are having you do it, and ultimately run through every jump. In an exercise like this, you also have to be confident in yourself to jump forward and up, and know that your coach is not going to make you do a drill that will not get you into the pit. They trust that you can do it, you need to as well. Sometimes, elites have to travel to meets alone. College athletes have to do
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it sometimes too. When they understand what their coach is telling them to do and why, it can help them in their solo meets.
Communicating with your coach is good. Questioning what they are telling you is not. There is a time and a place to ask why your coach is telling you to do something. A meet is not the best time to ask questions. Coaches are not going to tell you to do something drastically different at a meet. So the time to ask questions and learn is at practices—you are learning to prefect the technique and you are learning how your coach is going to help you do it. Be sure that when you are asking questions, that you listen to what they say first, and not ask the question in a way that makes you sound like you are ‘questioning’ their coaching. You have to trust what they are telling you, and they also have to trust that you will do what they say. Your coach wants you to be just as successful as you hope to be. They want to help you reach your goals. They will not tell you to do something if they do not think that it will help you. There will be times that your coach will have you try a drill that will not work. But that is why they have you do it in practice. There will be
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a meet that your standards were put in the wrong place or you stayed on a pole that was too small. It happens and it is not a reason to lose trust in them. It is teamwork. Coaches
are already hard enough on themselves when they tell you the wrong thing. It is your job as their athlete to not give up on them as your coach. Because they will never give up on you.
Sandi Morris and Jeff Hartwig
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After a hard days work! Harrison Ifft 2016
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