Gilroy (CA) vaulters take advantage of new pit (article)

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http://www.gilroydispatch.com/sports/co ... p?c=183715

Learning to Fly

Friday, April 14, 2006
By Ana Patejdl


Gilroy junior Jeff Garcia flies through the air during pole vault practice.
Photo by: Chris Riley/Chief Photographer


Sophomore Jeff Dempler plants and elevates himself into the air.
Photo by: Chris Riley/Chief Photographer
Gilroy - Not many people would be interested in turning themselves into a human catapult. But Gilroy junior Jeff Garcia actually likes it.

Garcia had never pole vaulted before the track and field season started. But when he saw the poles come out at the first day of practice, Garcia thought he'd give it a try.

"I don't know, it was something different," Garcia said during practice Thursday. "I wanted to fling myself with a pole, I guess."

Junior Carly Kennedy felt the same way.

"It just looked like so much fun," she said. "It's like the daredevil sport of track."

Before this year, pole vaulting had been absent from the Gilroy track and field program for five years, due to lack of a regulation pit.

Now, Garcia, Kennedy and nine other first-time pole vaulters are putting the new cutting edge pole vault pit at Garcia-Elder Sports Complex to good use.

The participation is more than what head coach Jeff Myers expected. The ex-Archbishop Mitty coach who was hired in the offseason to take over the struggling GHS program didn't want the Mustangs giving up points in pole vault at meets just because they didn't have the event. But Myers was also skeptical about how many athletes he would actually have interested in trying the sport.

The first few days of practice dashed his worries.

"In the third or fourth day of practice, (pole vault coach) Mark Carrick had 10 or 12 people and I'm thinking, 'How did we get vaulters?'" he laughed. "We've got a program already."

Myers added, "Everyday, we've got the same group. Everyday. They're loving it."

Carrick, who was a pole vaulter in high school in Southern California, admits the sport isn't for everyone. Some kids find out it's not as easy as they thought it would be or are too afraid to try it in the first place.

"You've got to have a little bit of craziness in you," Carrick said. "The guys you see that are good…they're the strangest people I've ever seen."

And although none of the Gilroy pole vaulters are walking around in weird sunglasses or wearing one black sock and one white sock, the pole vaulting reputation seems to be more appealing than deterring to the Mustangs.

"They want to try it," Carrick said. "There's a lot of enthusiasm."

Not that there hasn't been the fair share of "freaking out," as the coach puts it.

During the first days of practice, Carrick got his pupils used to the sport by "fishing" them into the pit. The coach would grab the vaulter's pole as he or she planted it and pull the athlete into the pit.

"They realized, 'I can make it, I'm not gonna die,'" he laughed.

Still, Kennedy remembers the first time she vaulted on her own was a little bit daunting.

"When you run down the runway, you kind of second guess yourself looking at it," Kennedy said. "But once you put your pole in, everything just disappears and it's like, 'OK, I'm up here.'"

At Thursday's practice, the athletes take turns running down the runway, planting their poles into the box in front of the pit and flinging themselves onto the huge mat. Carrick is emphasizing the "turnover" - when the vaulter goes from turning around at the top of the vault so he or she lands back-first in the pit. From time to time, one of them doesn't quite make it over the top and falls straight down onto the padding around the box. For those not used to watching, the moments are scary. But the state-of-the-art pit is so well padded that Carrick said the chance for serious injury is slim.

"We have one of the premier vaulting sites in the area. This is a college pit," said Carrick of the apparatus, which Myers traveled all the way to Reno to find. "It's a really good place to vault. It's very safe."

Like with any new sport, the six weeks the vaulters have spent learning the event have been a learning experience. The athletes have had to be patient and realize they're going to be less experienced than many of their competitors.

"I keep having to tell them, look, everyone else has had one year of experience at least. You've had four to six weeks," Carrick said.

At the first meet, none of the Gilroy pole vaulters could get over the opening height of six feet. Now, Carrick has two athletes - Garcia, who competes at the varsity level, and sophomore Weston Harland, who competes at the frosh/soph level - who can clear nine feet. Sophomore Jeff Dempler hasn't reached that height yet, but Carrick said he attracts attention of other pole vault coaches at meets because of his natural ability. The coach, who has over a decade of experience coaching pole vaulting, has a goal of getting at least one vaulter to clear 10 feet before the season ends.

And if more improvement doesn't occur, it won't be for lack of effort.

"The rain has been the only thing that's stopped us," the coach said.

Carrick said he always has vaulters getting to practice early, wanting to vault.

Garcia and Kennedy affirmed their coach's observations.

"I can't wait to run into the pit," Garcia said.

Added Kennedy, "After you do it once, you want to do it more and more."

How Do You Pole Vault?

The first three things Gilroy pole vault coach Mark Carrick says a new vaulter needs to learn:

1. How To Carry the Pole - It's not as easy as it looks. "It takes some adjustment," Carrick says. "You want to run as fast as you can with a 15-foot pole." And be relaxed all at the same time.

2. Getting Into the Pit - Learning to catapult oneself off the pole and over the bar takes some getting used to. Carrick spent the first few days of instruction "fishing" his pupils into the pit. Translation? He would grab the pole after the vaulter planted it into the box at the end of the runway and help pull the athlete into the pit.

3. It's Mind Over Matter - New vaulters can fall victim to thinking about the many technical aspects of pole vaulting, Carrick says. The goal is to have muscle memory take over.