There is a nice picture if you click on the link.
http://www.dailynebraskan.com/vnews/dis ... 10b8a4328b
Freshman Green raises the bar
By ROB HEUER / DN Staff Writer
January 23, 2004
HUSKER TRACK & FIELD
Jenny Green wasn't concentrating on setting a school record.
In the first meet of her career, she was more worried about form than results.
Little did she know that when she soared over the bar at the 2004 Pole Vault Summit in Reno, Nev., she had just set a new Nebraska school record by 5½ inches.
That distance is not just breaking a record in track and field -- it's a borderline explosion.
Talk about a pretty amazing "oops."
"I wasn't even trying to get (the mark). I was just trying to work on some technique," the 2003 Gatorade Nebraska Girls Track and Field Athlete of the Year said. "Things just turned out good for me.
"I expected to do good because of my work with Coach (Rick) Attig. I am surprised with how high I have gone."
If Green decides to put a few more trial runs on the scoreboard, the Big 12 and NCAA record bookkeepers better start buying Wite-Out by the caseload.
They may be able to bring out the famous correction fluid this weekend when Green and the Huskers host the Holiday Inn Invitational at the Bob Devaney Sports Center track.
Green is no stranger to breaking records, though. Her high school career was defined by it.
As a freshman, Green set the Nebraska state high school pole-vault record. By the time she graduated from Grand Island Central Catholic, Green had raised the record bar -- literally -- by almost two feet to establish a new mark of 13-3.
By raising the mark two dozen inches, Green did the track and field equivalent of hitting a 700-foot home run or scoring eight touchdowns in a football game.
Green got her high-flying start as a seventh grader. A lifelong gymnast, Green decided it was time for a change. She looked for other ways to fuel her athletic fire.
Pole-vaulting caught her eye because it looked challenging. So she gave it a shot, going head-to-head with the boys on her team because the squad had no girls' pole-vaulting team.
In just three years, Green became the best female pole-vaulter in the state of Nebraska, winning the All-Class gold medal for pole vault in each of her four years competing in the Nebraska State Track Meet.
Green doesn't take all the credit for her illustrious high school career, though. She gives the credit to the coaching she received.
Along with talented high school coaches, Green attended Attig's summer camp all through high school, where the two developed a rapport that inevitably brought her to Nebraska.
Attig said he could tell Green was special because she worked hard to retain the things he taught her each summer.
"Sometimes when you get athletes at camps, when they come back the next year, you feel like they didn't learn a thing," Attig said. "It seemed like the next year when she came back that she was retaining things. A lot of that is (Green's) personal responsibility."
Attig said that although she turned a few heads by launching her assault on the Nebraska record book ahead of schedule, he said Green's technique still could improve.
"There are still some things technically that she needs to work on," Attig said. "She just needs to have enough competitions to trust what she's worked on. There are certain things that you do under pressure of competition that you tend to go back with what has worked for you in the past."
Green admitted her ultimate goal was reaching the Olympics.
Her record-setting mark is only 2¾ inches away from the provisional qualifying mark for the Olympic Trials.
Even though she's close to the mark as a true freshman, Green is targeting the 2008 Olympics to make her dream come true.
While Olympic gold may not be in her immediate future, Green may collect a national championship or two in the same manner she set the NU school record.
"My goals for this year are to reach the 14-foot barrier and to qualify for indoor and outdoor nationals," Green said. "After I leave here, I want to be a national champion in pole vault."
