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Where does one even start if they are considering continuing on with serious training after college? How talent/region dependent is it?

It's mostly motivation dependant. Some people are dealt a better hand than others facility wise, but if you aren't self motivated you won't make it far. My biggest piece of advice is quality over quantity. If u make your athletic development workouts and vaulting sessions very high quality, u can get by with only a few sessions a week. I did 1 or sometimes 2 vaulting sessions a week last year, and I jumped over 5m 4 times in a row at the end of the season. My college pr was 4.65m. What made the difference was quality.

If you have been steadily improving when u graduate or jumping 17+ it is mostly about location and availability. If you have been steadily improving, try to stick with the same coach. If it ain't broken don't fix it!

I've seen people go from 15' to 18' and leave their college coach right after graduation to go to an 'elite coach'. Then they get worse. If you steadily improve from 15' to 18' over four years, why all of the sudden think you need a better coach? No one has a magic bullet, do what works for you.

What type of talent does it take to be a contender in open meets, to the point where you could even be making money?

vaultdawg2014 wrote:What type of talent does it take to be a contender in open meets, to the point where you could even be making money?

U will not make a 'living' off of it unless you have at least an A standard 5.72m (18'9). I use 'living' as even with that mark your sponsorship may not even completely cover the cost of living (like a minimum wage salary). The bigger meet is in Diamond League meets but you have to be one of top vaulters in the world to even get invited to those. And there are a few high 17' and 18' guys that have 'sponsors' but they are probably more just like free chiropractic care.

I'm not so much looking at it as a means to pay the bills, more or less just to break even (what with traveling, training, equipment, ect.) I was told in high school when collegiate pole vaulting became a reality for me, that I would never be good enough to have it as a career. I've already exceeded that man's expectations for me by a few feet, and I would like to add a few more to it, as well as just making sure I did everything I could to make him wrong about me. With that being said, this is not just a mission to say I told you so. I honestly love pole vaulting, and even on my absolute worst days (nothing but run-throughs) I can't imagine myself doing anything else, although I had several options for athletics that I was very passionate about. I want pole vault to be in my life for a long time, whether that be with coaching or competing or simply watching. Another reason I'm looking to continue is I feel as though as though I have the potential to keep improving. I'm very stubborn, and the only person who will ever convince me I can't achieve something is myself. I'm about to finish up my first semester of my junior year, and college is on the downhill, and have started to look towards the future, and was hoping for some first hand experience in the matter?

vaultdawg2014 wrote:I'm not so much looking at it as a means to pay the bills, more or less just to break even (what with traveling, training, equipment, ect.) I was told in high school when collegiate pole vaulting became a reality for me, that I would never be good enough to have it as a career. I've already exceeded that man's expectations for me by a few feet, and I would like to add a few more to it, as well as just making sure I did everything I could to make him wrong about me. With that being said, this is not just a mission to say I told you so. I honestly love pole vaulting, and even on my absolute worst days (nothing but run-throughs) I can't imagine myself doing anything else, although I had several options for athletics that I was very passionate about. I want pole vault to be in my life for a long time, whether that be with coaching or competing or simply watching. Another reason I'm looking to continue is I feel as though as though I have the potential to keep improving. I'm very stubborn, and the only person who will ever convince me I can't achieve something is myself. I'm about to finish up my first semester of my junior year, and college is on the downhill, and have started to look towards the future, and was hoping for some first hand experience in the matter?

I manage a post-collegiate club track and field team, one of only a handful in the country that has any sponsorship money for our athletes (a very small amount) and the only one I can think of that is actively sponsoring pole vaulters, so I have quite a bit of experience with the life of a post-collegiate athlete.

There are probably less than 10 vaulters, men and women, in the US who are getting enough in sponsorships/prize money to cover their pole vault related expenses. Most of the best vaulters in US history had to work a job for awhile before they reached a level where they didn't need to work. Most of the current elite vaulters either work or have a spouse/parents that are covering their basic expenses. Barely any vaulters have a shoe contract and most of the ones that do are only getting free gear and performance bonuses, no base pay.

No one is discouraging you from trying. But you need to be realistic that unless you are jumping almost 19' out of college, you're going to need to plan on finding at least part-time work to cover your expenses, unless you have parents that are willing to keep supporting you. That doesn't mean you can't keep training and vaulting, it means you need to start thinking about different career paths and how you can fit vaulting in with them.

You mentioned you might want to get into coaching, which is awesome. That's also a job that is difficult (though not impossible) to support yourself with, but it can work well as a side job or volunteer thing with some careers. Hard to fit in with a traditional 9-5 job though.