Building your own vaulters in college.

[VaultPurple]

So I have a idea I wan't to try that is going to be a big experiment.

The head track coach said our women's team had an unlimited roster so that sparked an idea in my head. The average high school has about 500 girls, where about 99% of the athletic ones do another sport other than pole vaulting. But yet high schools out there manage to produce 12' and better girls in 4 years while not getting the pick of the litter. Some high schools even have multiple 12' girls (Desert Vista had 5 last year! (with a very good coach)). The college I coach at has about 10,000 girls, where my guess would be that over 1000 of those did some kind of sport in high school. And a good number of them were really athletic but just were not able to continue at the college level.

What I want to do is go around campus and find girls that are pretty tall and fast that have just never tried to pole vault, and bring them out and teach them how to pole vault. This way I can find girls that are already athletic but do not come with the bad habits you have to fix that you get from a high school girl.

Right now I have two girls for my first project. One is about 5'8 and is on the club volleyball team but she was a decent long jumper in high school. The other is also on club volleyball team but is 5'10. The taller girl has actually pole vaulted before and has jumped like 10'3.

Any thoughts?

[drcurran]

I heard about one college coach (shall remain nameless - but an outstanding coach) who recruited something like 4 or 5 HS girls who had never vaulted, but they are all gymnasts. Sounds good!

Dan

[tsorenson]

How about Rick Suhr spotting Jenn Stuczinski playing a pickup BB game...and talking her into trying the PV. Great success story!

Good thought, VaultPurple. I agree that many vaulters are hampered by bad habits learned from years of little and/or bad coaching. A (big, fast, athletic) blank slate is something to work with...however, results matter in most collegiate environments, so the learning curve needs to be pretty steep, or else it won't work out and you may have a disappointed athlete. Seems like Title IX has given a much more nurturing situation to female collegiate beginners than male!

Tom

[dj]

hye

the University of North Florida in Jacksonville is on their way to "building", especailly on the womens side, from athletes....

good luck to them

dj

[figgiesblazin]

MIT has 3 vaulters who had never jumped before college. 2 of them went to DIII nationals this year in the vault. One of them is a sophomore and has cleared 3.70. The other is a senior who started jumping her sophomore year (she is also a heptathlete.) In her junior year she cleared 3.75. Both were former gymnasts, but it's definitely a testament that with some good coaching, it's not impossible to get someone to jump reasonably high pretty quickly.