Charles Polhamus is still leaping above record-setting heigh

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Vaulting through life
At 65, Handley graduate Charles Polhamus is still leaping above record-setting heights
By Val Van Meter
The Winchester Star

Winchester — Pole vaulter Charles Polhamus has a goal.

He wants to set a world record today.


Charles Polhamus practices pole vaulting at the James Wood athletic fields Tuesday in preparation for the USA Masters Indoor Track and Field Championships today at the Prince George’s Sports and Learning Center in Landover, Md. Polhamus won the 1961 state championship in pole vault while he was a student at Handley High School.
(Photos by Jeff Taylor)

That record is 11 feet, 31/4 inches in his division.

“I’ve been practicing at 12 feet,” Polhamus said, and he has the background to be confident.

The Handley High School graduate is no stranger to record-setting.

He started with a state championship at Handley in 1961, reaching 11 feet, 8 inches, and went on to garner 25 USA national titles, including eight indoor and outdoor records.

By the way, he is now 65 years old.

Polhamus calls Fitzgerald, Ga., home, but he was in his hometown this week, visiting his mother Tess Fox and preparing for the USA Masters Indoor Track and Field Championships today at the Prince George’s Sports and Learning Center in Landover, Md.

He won’t be the oldest competitor.

That honor goes to Leland McPhie, 95, of San Diego, a competitor in seven events, including the high jump, long jump, and triple jump.

“I can’t wait to get there,” Polhamus said, pausing in his exercises on James Wood High School’s football field.

“It’s been my life”

When he isn’t competing, Polhamus is training new generations of pole vaulters.

“I’ve got two pits and two runways” at his home for young athletes, where he stresses practice, practice, practice.

“It’s been my life,” he said.

Since the days when Polhamus was growing up on National Avenue in Winchester, he has been involved in pole-vaulting and teaching.

“He taught all of us guys,” said city resident Larry Lofton, who also reached the state-level championship in pole-vaulting for Handley.


Charles Polhamus’ form hasn’t changed much over the years. The 65-year-old practices at the James Wood High School athletic fields Tuesday in preparation for today’s competition in Landover, Md. Below, this undated photo shows a younger Polhamus vaulting in a competition in Tampa, Fla.
(Photo below provided by Charles Polhamus)


In a field behind Smalts Florists, Polhamus and friends dug a hole for planting the pole, and created a practice area for vaulting, Lofton said.

“We got bamboo poles from a furniture store,” Polhamus said, and mounted them on 2-by-4 wooden planks with nails hold the bamboo at various heights.

“We started at six feet,” he said, and the vaulters landed on the solid ground.

Polhamus no longer recalls what sparked his interest in the pole vault before he got to Handley. “Probably TV or a magazine.”

But what drew him to the sport, he said, “was the danger of it. The challenge.”

“He was a competitor”

In those days, Handley and many other schools competed in pole-vaulting as part of track and field contests.

“They were what I call the real pole vaulters,” said Jimmy Omps, 75, former athletic director at Handley, who was assistant coach in charge of track and field when Polhamus was there.

“It took some strength,” Omps said, to handle the steel poles used in the sport then. Steel didn’t have the flexibility of the current fiberglass poles, he noted.

And Polhamus “was a spindly young fellow.” But, he added, “he was a competitor.”

Polhamus said Handley had many good athletes competing in the pole vault. He can reel off the names, including Tommy Glass, Bobby Saville, Terry Plank, and others. Some won college scholarships based on their prowess.

“Handley dominated in pole vault in Virginia for many years,” he said, but most public schools finally dropped the sport, he said, apparently in part because of liability issues.

“I wasn’t a very good athlete,” Polhamus said — he was 6 feet tall and weighed just 119 pounds in those days — and noted that the school had many more gifted athletes.

But “I wanted to be the best. State champions are not always the most skilled. People who are passionate about what they do, are better at it than anyone else,” he said.

Desire counts for more than talent. “I sure fit into that mold.”

A great day in Rome

And that may be why, Polhamus said, he may be the only Handley grad to continue on this sort of athletic quest.

It may also be because of a man named Henry Davenport, who lived in Charles Town, W.Va..

When Polhamus was discharged from the Marine Corps, Davenport urged him not to give up on his pole vaulting skill.

“I started jumping with him,” Polhamus said, and at age 36, he was clearing 16 feet with an all-time high of 16 feet, 83/4 inches in 1982.

And he realized he had a shot at a record. He went to a meet in 1983 and did just that, clearing 15 feet, 83/4 inches.

In 1984, Polhamus began seriously training for a new goal, the Olympics.

But that was not to be, he said. After intensive training in California, he suffered an injury that kept him out of the competition. But it didn’t keep him down. He came back to compete in several world championships.

In Rome in 1985, 134 vaulters from 24 countries were on hand.

“I opened at 13 feet, 6 inches,” Polhamus recalled.

The event came down to just one other vaulter.

At 14 feet, 6 inches, Polhamus cleared on his first attempt and his opponent missed.

Vaulters have three tries to clear a height. They can pass a second attempt, if they are willing to try again at an even higher level.

Polhamus had the bar raised to 15 feet, 13/4 inches and sailed over it with a foot to spare. Again, his opponent passed.

At 15 feet, 31/4inches, he again cleared on his first try, and that was the contest.

“The American contingent went wild,” he said. “It was probably my greatest [moment].”

Looking for another record

And even though he has claimed other titles since, Polhamus said some of the great moments now come when the youths he coaches reach the same heights.

Watching his young protegees — about 23 high school athletes from six states — set records and win state titles, “these are the things that make what I do so much fun.”

But he’s still out there competing.

“I deal with a lot of pain,” he admitted, but it takes “sweat and pain daily, to get where I have to go.”

Vaulting involves running and lifting muscles, as well as being “completely inverted — upside-down — two stories in the air.”

It is, Polhamus agreed, a long way to come down.

So he runs and lifts weights, in addition to hours of vaulting and practicing drills.

The years of training pay off, he said. “I’m jumping higher than when I was in high school.”

And he sets his sights high — for instance, a record in the masters’ competition today.

“Nothing’s guaranteed, but I’ve put in the work and the time,” he said. “Everybody wants to be somebody. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

As Polhamus tells his trainees, no matter what you do, when you are the best in the world at it, there aren’t too many people that can say that.

“Charles,” said Jimmy Omps, “is incredible.”