Personal Records:
Long Jump: 17-4
Pole Vault: 15-3
What is your height and weight?
My height is 6-1 and weight 162.'
Where were you born and what sports did you play as a youth?
I was born in Burnsville, MN. I played soccer for a number of years, as well as football and hockey. I had also done swimming and gymnastics for a couple years when I was much younger. I started track as a freshman in high school. Honestly, I would say football helped me the most. It taught me to be fearless and commit to something. In football, just as in vaulting, it is dangerous to tackle someone without fully committing.
What are the most difficult obstacles you have had to overcome?
My most difficult obstacle has actually been off the field. I have battled the same things most athletes have, injuries, shin splints, etc. but in reality, I would say it has been my sister's illnesses. When she was 13 she went into the hospital for months at a time. No doctors could figure out the issue. Eventually it was diagnosed as Pancreatitis. This escalated into lupus, as well as pots, and a few other diseases. My sister's always driven me to make the most out my life. That's why I always try to keep active, because she can't. This has been hard on my family as well as me. I've spent a lot of time in the hospital with her, but if you want to see true grit, look at her, not me. As I said, she's what's driven much of my sports career.
Which coaches have helped you the most?
What's funny about my coaches is the fact that the old Lakeville South pole vaulting coach quit the year before I joined. Jonathan Gilmer ended up being my coach for the first three years. He didn't know pole vaulting very well at first, but he studied up and taught us what he could. Honestly, I would rather have him than an actual pole vaulting coach because he knows me so well mentally. He also coached me in football. Pole vaulting is such a mental sport, I compare it to golf in that way. He would always help me when I got frustrated, he'd tell me to relax or take a break. He helped me to focus.
Then this recent year, we got an actual pole vaulting coach. Zach Gelineau used to be a vaulter at Lakeville South. He ended up vaulting 15-3 in college. He's helped me to refine much of my technique. He's been a great coach and I hope he continues!
Do you go to camps or watch a lot of video?
I do a lot of research online to help out my technique. As I said before, Mr. Gilmer wasn't an actual pole vault coach, so I always tried to learn more online. I've read through almost anything I could find online related to drills or technique. I've also watched hours and hours of videos to help me. I think that's a big deal for vaulters, to work at home with what they can.
Before every meet I'd watch various videos and slo-mo's of Olympic vaulters and visualize myself using their form. As for videos, I would recommend just watching Olympic vaulters. They are the best resource one can find on the ideal pole vaulting form.
Besides that, and for actual drills, I would say take a look at this video.
There is a drill for almost everything you need in that video! I have also gone to various summer camps. Mainly they help me to just get some vaults in on the off season so that I can stay fresh for the actual season, but I also work on a fair bit. This summer my coach is doing a camp so I'll be going there, it's a great way to learn and stay sharp for the season!
Do you follow any college or professional pole vaulters?
As to the athletes I follow. I try to stay apprised on Lee Bares, now at Army, who was a vaulter from Lakeville South. He actually holds our school record at 15-9. I really wanted to get that, but didn't quite get there.
Professionally I follow Renaud Lavillenie, who is the world record holder for pole vault. I also like to keep up to date on golfers. I think golfers can teach people so much mentally speaking. They can't get frustrated and are always calm and collected. The same has to go for pole vault, if your focus is off, or if you're frustrated, you won't vault well, it's just a fact. They also practice for 8 hours a day at times, it's a philosophy that just shows that hard work equals success, there never has been and there never will be shortcuts to it.
What advice would you give to beginning pole vaulters?
For people new to vaulting, I would honestly just say to stick with it. As you said, it is the most technically challenging sport in track, it's not something most people just pick up and are good at. My first meet ever, I ended up getting 9-6, in 4 yearsI've progressed to my current PR of 15-3. When I started my form was probably worse than most starters, I landed on my head as much as my back! But I stuck with it, just as any vaulter does, you will pick up the technique as you go. Lastly train in the weight room and train for sprints. Any good vaulter will tell you speed equals height, but strength will always augment that height.
Which of your teammates have inspired you?
Many of my teammates have encouraged me. One of my best friends Anthony Vote, as well as his brother Adam Vote, have always encouraged me to try harder. To work harder we used to come out in the summer and work on sprint training. They were both hurdlers. We actually built fake hurdles for them to train on! That was the philosophy they instilled in me.
Another big influence was the other vaulters, we'd always joke around, but they truly helped me to get better. They would sit off and tell me what I needed to work on when I was younger.
One last person would be Brittan Burns, he's an amazing athlete and would be doing probably about 10 events if there was no limit. (Burns has a 5718 score for the decathlon as high school junior!) Before every meet he'd ask me what I was going for height wise and if he didn't think it was high enough he'd tell me what I should go for. I believe his exact wording whenever I saw him before a meet was "Let's get it!" And most of the time we did, we had a really good season and my teammates deserve so much credit, we all put in a lot of work and it paid off.
Who are your main competitors?
There are a lot of good vaulters this year. Coming into it, I thought Calvin Ciganik would be my main competition. He gave me a run for my money at many meets. Henry Adams as well as Drew Dockendorf also ended up being big competition. They are great athletes and good people. We always chat at meets and see how everybody else is doing. That's what's nice about pole vaulting, I've got many friends from different schools that vault, because in reality, your not against them, your against yourself and the bar. Most people get that and it's always fun to cheer other people on, especially if they PR, regardless of the height.
Notably though, the guys from Prior Lake have always been super nice and very supportive. They are great kids and they've got an awesome coach. They always cheer me on and I always do my best to cheer them on. They've got some good vaulters, but they're always very humble and overall great guys. Honestly vaulting is a community in and of itself; there are very few guys who aren't outstanding people in general. I'm glad to be apart of this community.
(Photo provided by Noah Shafer)
Has your family been supportive?
Well my parents and sister would be the big one. They've always been my biggest fans. I remember my dad saying before the first meet I'd ever had that I would win state. At the time I thought he was crazy. But he proved me wrong, with their support I did end up winning it. Besides them, just the general encouragement was huge; many of my parents' friends cheered me on, my neighbors, and even people I didn't know. It kept me focused on trying to improve, to live up to the expectations. I didn't meet my goal of breaking the state record, but I've always thought that if you meet whatever goal you set for yourself then it wasn't high enough.
What techniques are most important in the pole vault?
Oh boy... This is a big one! Well to keep it fairly simplified. For a new vaulter the most important thing to do is learn in order of the vault. What I mean by that is to vault one must run, then drop the pole, then plant, then swing, etc. It goes on and on, you have to learn in that order, you can't work on getting upside down if you don't have a good plant.
So I'd say learn to run well, watch Olympic vaulters, they don't start out at a flat out sprint, they only reach top speed their last two steps or so. Another important thing with the run is to count your steps in your head, it helps to keep a cadence and makes it more replicable. I count my right foot as an "and" and my left as a number. Everybody's different, but my run should sound like this: "and, 1, and, 2, and, 3, etc"
Then you need to learn how to drop the pole. You should drop the pole in such a way that it doesn't feel like you have to fight it to keep your balance that would cause you to lose speed. If you can run alright and drop the pole fine, then it's on to the actual plant.
For right handed vaulters, you should have the tip of the pole hitting the left side of the box, then what most people have an issue with, is at takeoff both your hands should be relatively straight. They need to be there to transfer your run momentum, otherwise you will have a hard time taking up a larger pole as well as getting depth.
Then there's the swing, it's not natural to flip your body upside down and trust this stick to not break. In fact that happened to me, I was trying out a new 15.6" pole and ended up snapping it in two places. But back to the swing, you need to keep a long trail leg which means the leg you jump off of should stay extended throughout the vault.
That is something that I struggle with as well as most high school vaulters. Once you swing you need to completely invert and actually have your legs behind your head. Then you have to extend them and do something that we call "rowing" in the vaulting world. This means you have to throw your hands down and pull/push your body above the pole.
Once you're above the pole you rotate and make a "V" with your body. Finally you throw the pole and land on your back. Any of these steps are well documented online and you can find hundreds of resources to learn them.
What are the most important physical qualities of a pole vaulter?
Physically speaking, speed and core strength are the main things you need to be a good vaulters. General arm strength will help to keep separation between oneself and the pole when vaulting, but chest and core strength are the big ones. Back strength will help when you get upside down, but the abdominal muscles will allow someone to get upside down fast and to explode out of that position. That is why vaulters can vault higher than their pole. Shoulder muscles also will help to pull you up the pole in the rowing phase.
For work outs I would say bench press and simple sit ups. Anything that works your abs will help and any other basic work out is still needed. You need decent body strength overall to be a good vaulter. Regardless of all that, the magical work out for vaulters are two things, pull ups and lots and lots of Bubkas.
Bubkas are named after Sergey Bubka who held the world pole vault record for nearly 30 years. It is basically a vault form on a pull up bar or gymnastic rings. It works all the muscles you need for a vault because in essence it is a vault without the run. I try and end any practice with 20 of these and on the short practices I try and do 50.
For the pole vault speed, strength, and height helps. A taller athlete will have a higher "attack" angle (the angle of your top hand to the box, this means less distance for you to go and easier vaulting.) But height is by no means a requirement.
As for jumping, a lot of people just let the pole pull them up, but in reality the trick to taking up a bigger pole is to jump just before it hits the box. This in essence makes you taller, it means you have less distance to move to the pit and that means you will be deeper (towards the back) in the pit when you land. This means you can ultimately take up a bigger pole.
The issue with this is timing. Jump too early and you'll waste momentum by having to jump out and up, jump too late and you've wasted energy that doesn't end up helping you because the pole's already pulling you. But jump just right and it will help you immensely.
Where will you attend college?
I'll be going to NDSU. I'm going there for mechanical engineering. I'm going because I really like their engineering program and it's a pretty good deal economically speaking. I hope to vault for them, but since I committed after they filled up their roster I have to compete for a spot. I believe I will be able to make the team, and hope with the training they will be able to offer I can elevate to the next level.
What other high school sports have you played?
I played hockey for junior gold teams in high school. I was not the greatest hockey player by any means, but it kept me busy and I had a lot of fun playing it. I also played football for my freshman and sophomore year. I took a break my junior year, but tried to do it again senior year. I had a very hard time running and couldn't figure out why, eventually we got it x-ray'd and I had an "abnormality" on my knee cap. Apparently I'd somehow chipped my kneecap. So I went though Two-A-Days, then stopped so I could still play track. Lastly I did trap shooting for a year.
What other events have you done in track & field?
I actually came out freshman year as a sprinter, 400m being my main sprint. I did fairly well the first year but ended up doing mostly pole vaulting. I sprinted a bit sophomore year too. Junior year I only did pole vaulting. Then this year I wanted to long jump, sprint and pole vault. The first meet I was scheduled to do all of that. In my 4 x 200 meter relay the person who was supposed to be handing me the baton stuck his foot out too far on the handoff and spiked my ankle. I finished the race then went and luckily won vaulting, then ate, then got 7 stitches. I decided that maybe I wasn't going to sprint this year.
Have you received any academic awards?
I've received a number of awards voted on by my teammates for track. But I've also received a few academic awards. This year I received three awards for Science, English, and the STEM program. Last year I had received one for woods. My GPA isn't quite what I want at a 3.27. But I missed a lot when my sister was in the hospital and ended up having a hard time making it up. Luckily I got a 29 on the ACT which helped for college.
What will you miss most about high school sports?
I believe I will miss most the players and coaches. There was a lot of camaraderie in that group and all the people were truly outstanding. We had fun and we learned, the coaches taught us life skills and we improved in track. We worked hard, but we joked around plenty. The other players and the coaches are what made the team, not our marks. I'm hoping in college I will be able to join into a group as good as my high school one.
