Denny Steele (Ashland coach) tries to follow Petrov

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http://www.times-gazette.com/news/article/4552353

Track and Field/Taking measure of his success/Pole vaulting coach's proteges carry on winning tradition


March 24, 2009


By MATT STRAYER

T-G Sports Writer

Denny Steele's family tree, both immediate and extended, would kiss the ground with the weight of national and state championship gold medals if it had actual branches.

Ashland University's volunteer pole vaulting coach for the last 16 years, Steele also coached his son, Greg, to back-to-back OHSAA Division I championships in 1996 and 1997 for Ashland High School.

Now another of his sons -- this one emotional, not biological -- has done it again. March 14, Denny Steele guided AU's Dan Tierney to a gold medal at the NCAA Division II indoor track and field championships in Houston.

"The two young men at the university that won a national championship, it was the same kind of feeling coaching my son," Steele said of Tierney and Clark Lozier, who won a national outdoor title in the mid-1990s. "I tend to treat the kids I coach as my own sons.

"One of the things that I have to do when the competition starts is, I have to tell myself, 'Don't cheer for them, coach them.' That's really hard to do."

A runner-up in the pole vault at the Division II outdoor championships last spring, Tierney's 17-foot, 9-inch vault set an AU record and was just an inch and a half short of the Division II indoor record.

Tierney tried for 18-1, which would have broken the record by a half inch, but fell just short, Steele said.

"I'd actually be surprised if (Tierney) didn't jump 18-something outdoors," Steele said.

A fifth-year senior, Tierney has his sights set on another gold medal at the outdoor championships. If he gets his gold, it would be the second time in less than three months and third time all together Steele would get to place a medal on an athlete he has coached, something he didn't get to do when Greg Steele won the state title.

"I owe a lot to Denny," Tierney said. "He volunteers his time every day to come in. Without him being here, there's no way I would have been up there."

The apples haven't fallen far from the tree. Denny Steele and his brother, Rick, kept an Ohio high school Class A championship in their family for four straight years at Braceville High School in Trumbull County.

Denny Steele won the title in 1962 and '63, while Rick Steele claimed it in '64 and '65. Both were coached by their father, Had Steele.

Like father, like son.

"It wasn't just any coach, it was my dad," Greg Steele said about winning two state championships with his father as his coach. "That made it all that much more special. ... Everybody wants to make their dad proud, and my dad and I have such a close relationship. That made it very special. And there was a little bit of the continuing of the family tradition."

Denny Steele went on to letter four years at Kent State University as a pole vaulter. He won a Mid-American Conference championship in 1966.

Greg Steele followed in his father's footsteps, becoming an NCAA Division I vaulter at the University of Kansas. But making his son into a vaulter was never something Denny Steele set out to do -- at least at first.

"It never occurred to me that he'd be a vaulter," Denny Steele said. "(Greg and sister Rachel) would come over with me and they'd watch me jump. ... The next thing I know (Greg) wants to vault, so it was his idea to be a vaulter."

As it turned out, Greg Steele was a natural. He set Ashland school records from middle school into high school until he tied the state record with a 16-foot vault at the Ohio Heartland Conference meet his senior year.

"When he first started jumping, he was doing something in his technique that I thought was wrong and I was going to fix it later," Denny Steele said. "Turns out it was absolutely the right thing to do within the old Soviet Union style. ... He was just a natural. He was just wired to do this."

Denny Steele later learned that Soviet style, which transfers more energy into the pole than the "old style," from the proprietor himself, world-famous coach Vitaly Petrov at the Reno Vault Summit.

Petrov perhaps is best known for coaching the only vaulter ever to clear 20 feet, world record-holder Sergey Bubka.

"I had a chance to kind of pick his brain," Denny Steele said. "I had a chance to see what they were doing by way of technique and really just adapted it to what I thought I already knew."

While he learned the tricks of the trade from Petrov, Steele learned how to be a coach from his father. His keys to success are humor and positive reinforcement, not badgering and belittling.

"We've all had those coaches that are overly aggressive or overly negative," Greg Steele said. "They focus on what you're doing wrong rather than what you're doing right. My dad's the other way around."

A volunteer who retired from Abbott Laboratories in 2004, Denny Steele was quick to pass off credit to his athletes.

"It's relatively easier to coach young men who are very bright," he said. "... It's just kind of an extra blessing for somebody like me who gets to work with what I would consider the cream of the crop of America's youth. I see nothing but good things for America given the fact that these young men are going to be the leaders."