Ridgewood pole vaulters raise the bar (FL)

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http://www.tbo.com/sports/MGBVCW6HOLE.html

Pole Vaulters Raise The Bar

Pole vaulters Keari Brink, Paul Walsh and Ashley Haggard say they owe much of their success this season to coaches John Herig and Eddie Haab.

CHRIS URSO / Tribune


By CRISTINA LEDRA cledra@tampatrib.com

Published: Apr 6, 2006

NEW PORT RICHEY - During the hot and sunny afternoon practice on the eve of the Sunshine Athletic Conference track meet, Ridgewood's pole vaulters feel the real burn from two sets of eyes examining their every move.

Juniors Paul Walsh and Ashley Haggard and sophomore Keari Brink all go into the meet as strong contenders for the boys and girls pole vault titles, thanks in large part to the guidance and expertise of their coaches, John Herig and Eddie Haab.

"When you have two coaches, they're right on you all the time, you can never get away," Haggard said. "If you walk away for water, they're like 'Where are you going?'"

Herig has been an assistant with the Rams for the past 12 years and was a former pole vaulter at Ridgewood in the late 1980s.

Haab, who just joined the coaching staff this season, is a 1999 graduate of Ridgewood and holds the school record in the event with 14 feet, 6 inches. He graduated from the University of Florida, where his personal best was 15-9.

"He's made it easier because I haven't been to college in over 10 years so the stuff that I haven't seen, the new techniques and the new forms and the new training tools, he brings that and we change it up," Herig said.

What the two coaches bring to a thriving pole vault program is a wealth of knowledge that is unmatched in the county.

Early in the season, Haab instructed Walsh to start holding the end of the pole and start his runs a little further back.

"The first run I did, it was the first time I bent the pole really well and I got up," Walsh said. "Ever since then I've been shooting up in height, a lot better than what I did last year and the year before."

Walsh cleared 10-6 in the first meet of the season. By the second meet, he cleared 11-6. Last week at Gulf, he cleared 12 feet.

"Last year he was jumping and having fun, not really doing things the way they were supposed to be done and learning the proper way," Haab said.

With newfound confidence, Walsh hopes to advance to at least the region meet this season and is eyeing Haab's record for his senior season.

As a distance runner, Haggard has had a hard time adjusting to a field event that is usually reserved for sprinters, but her coaches are on her to make sure she gets her technique down to clear her highest possible height. Her personal best is 8-6, still behind Wesley Chapel's Pam Guertin, who is clearing 10-1. But Herig says it is within Haggard's and Brink's reach to break Ridgewood's girls record of 10-6 by the time they graduate.

"Sometimes the day before [a meet] I'll train for a distance run and then I'll have to come and sprint and they're always like, 'You have to run on your toes' and I'm like, 'I know, I know but it's hard,'" Haggard said.

Also clearing 8-6 is Brink, who competed for the first time in three weeks last week after sustaining a sprained ankle during practice for her competitive soccer team.

"I expected to do horribly," said Brink, who reached that personal best during the Rams' last meet. "Every time I missed something they would talk to me and calm me down."

Ridgewood's pole vaulters are doing better than they expected this season and say they owe most of that to Herig and Haab, but the coaches are just as quick to credit their athletes, who have been coming out in droves for a usually unpopular sport.

"Some of them exceeded my expectations, but then about midway through the season I set higher standards when I saw them doing so well," Herig said. "Whatever they do, I commend them. This is a sport that not everybody likes to do. It scares a lot of people so everything they accomplish, it's a credit to themselves. It's great having the coaches to polish them, but it's great having the athletes to coach."