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Cole Saathoff, Senior at O'Connor High School.

We've worked with him for a short period of time, he is on 15' poles, running from 7 lefts and has potential to be on on 16' poles with his strength and speed. His body build is ideal for pole vaulting and I'll be excited to see how high he can go in the future. As he continues to mature in the vault, 17' is well within his reach.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eD-f5P-ZwAk

Good Luck in your future Meets Cole!

I've never seen anyone clear 15-0 with such "rough" technique! He's definitely a "diamond in the rough"!

I've also never seen anyone miss a bar before by knocking it off from the bottom up ... AFTER he's cleared it by a mile!

Are you looking for pointers on how he can improve his techique ... or do you already know?

Kirk

Kirk,

Thank you for your response!

We know the things he needs to work on, and as you know sometimes it takes longer to put it all together in a meet scenario over a bar. I know he is capable of going big and it's nice to see that he has so much to improve on while already going 15'. He's a great athlete and I just felt he needed to be acknowledged.

Hopefully I'll have a new video from him after the next couple of meets with more improvement! Keep an eye out!

-Brookelyn

KirkB wrote:I've never seen anyone clear 15-0 with such "rough" technique!

You should've seen Broderick Mathis a few years ago. He jumped 15'6" by at least 2 1/2 feet. He needed at least 2 feet of clearance to leave a bar up. He was horrific technically and completely uncoachable but was a stud athlete who could run a 10.6 100m and was on a 16/190 pole. He didn't last one semester in junior college since he was about as sharp as a nerf football.

I knew a kid once that started out jumping the exact same way, flagging out. He got stuck at 16.00 feet. Then he learned how to get vertical, and jumped 18.00 feet. This kid in the video has a bright future.

kev44000 wrote:I knew a kid once that started out jumping the exact same way, flagging out. He got stuck at 16.00 feet. Then he learned how to get vertical, and jumped 18.00 feet. ...

Hmm ... not many high schoolers can do that!

He must have had one or two good coaches ... and a father that was willing to pay for a full series of poles ... until he got into the upper stratosphere where pole mfrs were giving him free poles!

Kirk

kev44000 wrote:I knew a kid once that started out jumping the exact same way, flagging out. He got stuck at 16.00 feet. Then he learned how to get vertical, and jumped 18.00 feet. This kid in the video has a bright future.

When I saw the video the first thing I thought was, "Poor man's Jack Whitt."

It is pretty amazing that he can clear 15' without getting into a position where his back has rotated past horizontal. Obviously if he can learn to rotate past that position he can achieve much more height without any increase in runway speed or pole length or weight.

I think what is more impressive is his run and takeoff! Every youth athlete takes time to understand the upside down portion of the jump. Good luck to this young man!

Barto wrote:

kev44000 wrote:I knew a kid once that started out jumping the exact same way, flagging out. He got stuck at 16.00 feet. Then he learned how to get vertical, and jumped 18.00 feet. This kid in the video has a bright future.

When I saw the video the first thing I thought was, "Poor man's Jack Whitt."

Good call.

i dont know what all of you are talking about... he has perfect technique... his only flaw is that he vaults with his tongue out

Riley Crosby wrote:i dont know what all of you are talking about... he has perfect technique... his only flaw is that he vaults with his tongue out

What!!!!!!! I hope you are joking.