{"id":7774,"date":"2025-03-31T10:50:49","date_gmt":"2025-03-31T14:50:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dahlman.online\/?p=7774"},"modified":"2025-03-31T10:50:52","modified_gmt":"2025-03-31T14:50:52","slug":"pole-vault-mentor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dahlman.online\/index.php\/2025\/03\/31\/pole-vault-mentor\/","title":{"rendered":"Pole Vault Mentor"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This is a \u201cSunday Story\u201d essay on Our America \u2013 even though it\u2019s not Sunday.  No politics today, just a story about a friend.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mentor<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

A mentor is someone, usually older, who goes \u201cabove and beyond\u201d to bring you into a different \u201cworld\u201d, often a profession or career.  They may be a \u201cboss\u201d, but if they are, they\u2019re a \u201cboss\u201d that\u2019s as interested in your learning and success as their own.  They may just be a more experienced co-worker or contemporary, giving of their own time and self to help you learn and succeed.  And, often, a mentor also becomes a friend, more than \u201cjust\u201d someone working in the same field.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Throughout my careers (politics, teaching, coaching, administrating, officiating) I\u2019ve had the absolute gift of great mentors.   Now at sixty-eight, it\u2019s sort of odd to think about \u201cgrowing\u201d anything but older.  But in all of those \u201ccareer\u201d paths, even now; there\u2019s been someone more experienced, willing to take me \u201cunder their wing\u201d and \u201cgrow me\u201d in the job.  They\u2019ve taught me to be successful, but more importantly, they taught me to \u201cdo it right\u201d, whether with kids, or with rules and guidelines, or with the \u201ctechniques\u201d required to get the work done.   I might have been \u201cOK\u201d completely on my own, but I know I am so much better because of those mentors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Track and Field<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I was a track and field coach for forty years, and during that time I coached every event.  I started as a sprints and hurdles coach because that\u2019s what I did.  But along the way I became a throws coach (shot and discus, also some javelin, but not hammer), a jumps coach (high, long and triple), and a distance coach, including cross country running.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had success in all of those areas; and I think it was that broad experience that helped me be a better head coach.  Different kinds of kids did different events. To be successful, you had to reach the kids where they were and challenge them to be better.  What worked in encouraging a sprinter didn\u2019t work with a high jumper, or most distance runners.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pole Vault<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

But if you ask around in the track coaching community in Columbus, Ohio, you\u2019d probably hear me \u201cpigeon-holed\u201d as a \u201cpole vault guy\u201d.  That\u2019s because, back when I first became a head coach (at twenty-five, really a kid myself), I had good vaulters, but didn\u2019t have a coach for them.  So I took on a new event.  And I spent several summers travelling to find \u201cthe best\u201d vault coaches to learn from.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

 I spent time with Marshal Goss at Indiana University, at the time coaching the American Record holder, Dave Volz.  Then I went to Rhode Island to learn from Bill Falk, who was dedicated to teaching vault to America, as well as his All-Americans at the University.  He held massive summer camps for kids from all over the Nation.  I learned a lot from Bill, and my kids improved.  And I got to introduce kids from Pataskala, Ohio, to fresh lobster (three out of four liked it, I ate the fourth\u2019s share after my own).   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Rock<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

But I kept hearing about this pole vault camp at Slippery Rock University, three hours away just over the Ohio\/Pennsylvania line.\u00a0\u00a0Some athletes we competed against in the summer went there, and came back with stories of a \u201cpole vault boot camp\u201d, with twelve hours of instruction a day for five days.\u00a0\u00a0They were weary, but once they recovered they were so much better.\u00a0\u00a0There were five camp sessions a summer, with sixty to one hundred vaulters in each session.\u00a0\u00a0All in this small town in Pennsylvania, where the one place kids could get snacks was a gas station with the odd name of \u201cSheetz\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So I sent some kids up to Slippery Rock in the early 1990\u2019s , and I went myself for a couple of days.  And I met a guy named Mark Hannay.  He was the camp director, the pole vault and javelin coach at \u201cThe Rock\u201d, and a former successful high school track coach at Mercer just down the road.  Mark was passionate about pole vault, and, as a high school teacher (science), he was able to break down the vault in terms that kids, and coaches, could understand.  That first year I went up for a couple of days, but the next year I enrolled for the full Sunday through Friday experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pole Vault Boot Camp<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

It really was pole vault \u201cboot camp\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0We were up at 7 for breakfast, and onto the track by 8:30.\u00a0\u00a0There were ten \u201cpit groups\u201d, on five separate runways and pole vault pits, and the kids were divided by ability.\u00a0\u00a0Pit One\u00a0\u00a0was for the rookies, Pit Five was the most advanced vaulters, the state qualifiers and champions of their areas.\u00a0\u00a0Athletes came from all over the country, flying into Pittsburgh.\u00a0\u00a0Mark would send a staffer to pick them up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Half of the kids would vault (the A group from each pit about ten) and half would do drills (the B group).  Then, after an hour and a half, they\u2019d switch.  There\u2019d be a \u201cpit coach\u201d on each pit, with about ten kids on the runway at a time.  The Slippery Rock college kids would run the drill sessions.  At 11:30 we\u2019d break for lunch, but by 1:00 we were in a lecture hall.  Mark would lay out the vault in a series of lectures, usually until about 3:30.  Younger kids would start to squirm, and everyone, somewhere along the way, took a nap (including this coach).  But athletes, with their vault problems fresh in their minds, could start to see the answers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then it was dinner, and back to the track for another three hour session.  Next, return to the lecture hall, this time just for an hour.  Then, a quick break \u2013 to Sheetz or to order a pizza, then back to the lecture hall for a movie.  There wasn\u2019t too much goofing around back in the dorms after Monday night.  Everyone was exhausted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Wednesday the vaulters were too tired to argue.  They\u2019d just \u201cdo\u201d what the pit coaches told them.  And even though their legs were \u201cjellified\u201d by all the vaults, most had amazing improvements.  They forgot all their \u201cbad habits\u201d, and just did what they were supposed to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pit Coach<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

That first year I was \u201cjust another observer\u201d.  Then, in 1995, Mark asked me to become a \u201cpit coach\u201d.  I wasn\u2019t ready to spend five weeks of the summer, but I was very willing to do one.  And for the next eleven years I became part of \u201cMark\u2019s Coaches\u201d at \u201cThe Rock\u201d.  Like the kids, it was pole vault \u201cboot camp\u201d for us too.  We talked vault through all the meals, and through late nights in the dorms waiting for kids to nod off.  Mark had amazing energy, his force drove the whole enterprise.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And he brought us coaches, into the real world of technical vaulting.\u00a0\u00a0We were on the cutting edge, part of an American effort to regain the \u201ctop\u201d, first taken by the French and then the Russians.\u00a0\u00a0Mark was on a first name basis with the best coaches in the world:\u00a0\u00a0Petrov, Landers, Bemiller, Hull, and Mark\u2019s mentor, Rick Attig.\u00a0\u00a0And he brought their experience and knowledge to us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And, of course, we \u201cpit coaches\u201d had a lot of discussions as well.\u00a0\u00a0Some of my best friendships in the pole vault world were formed around the tables in Boozel Dining Hall, on in the \u201clounge\u201d in the dorm.\u00a0\u00a0We argued, we discussed, everything from technical pole vault stuff to how to handle track teams.\u00a0\u00a0And there were stories, so many stories, from Mark about his water-skiing days, and from the rest of us as well.\u00a0\u00a0After a few years, we knew most of the old ones, but they were good to hear again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Coaching Coaches<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

In 2002 four athletes died nationwide in the pole vault, including one that the Pennsylvania guys were close to, Kevin Dare at Penn State.  That summer, we determined that we needed to do something to \u201csave\u201d our event.  I was already involved in pole vault education in Ohio, but it was at Slippery Rock that year that we all became dedicated to making pole vault safe by making coaches coach safely.  Mark was the impetus for that, in Ohio through me, in Pennsylvania through Rob Wahl, and in other parts of the country as well. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The last year at the \u201cRock\u201d was 2006.\u00a0\u00a0There were already \u201crumors\u201d around that Slippery Rock was making \u201ca change\u201d that wouldn\u2019t include Mark Hannay.\u00a0\u00a0Hard to imagine that they\u2019d turn down five weeks of filled-and-paid dorm rooms and meal plans (at that time the kids were paying about $250 per session, $25,000 gross income a week for four or five weeks), but they did.\u00a0\u00a0Mark left Slippery Rock, and the legendary camp days were over.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But he still kept his hand in pole vault.\u00a0\u00a0He developed a \u201cPole Vault Education Initiative\u201d, to reach coaches with carefully vetted information.\u00a0\u00a0We even tried a PVEI camp at Gettysburg College, which was great fun, but the private college costs were too high.\u00a0\u00a0I had pole vault camps modeled after \u201cthe Rock\u201d back at Watkins Memorial High School until 2017, and helped other camps as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Making a Difference<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I was part of the continuing education here in Ohio, developing a basic \u201cpole vault safety program\u201d for coaches.\u00a0\u00a0There are several other ones as well today, but I\u2019m proud that here in Ohio, a coach must at least have \u201ccertification\u201d in pole vault before they try to teach kids.\u00a0\u00a0I\u2019ve done thirty-plus years of coaching clinics in Ohio, and some in Michigan as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mark passed away this week.\u00a0\u00a0He first went into Hospice last summer, and I got a chance to go see him.\u00a0\u00a0I went into his room and he was fast asleep, so I sat awhile until he finally\u00a0\u00a0woke up.\u00a0\u00a0I introduced myself, but he was still dozy.\u00a0\u00a0We started talking, but he didn\u2019t realize who I was.\u00a0\u00a0We talked track, and pole vault, and he asked where I was from.\u00a0\u00a0I told him near Columbus, and he said \u201cYou need to talk to Marty Dahlman down there\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0We got through that moment of awkwardness, then spent a couple more hours, until he was clearly tired, and it was time for me to go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I got a chance to tell him that we did reach a lot of people, and that he did make pole vault a better and safer event in our “track and field” world.\u00a0\u00a0There hasn\u2019t been a pole vault fatality in more than a decade.\u00a0\u00a0I think he took some pride in that.\u00a0\u00a0And, I thanked him for taking me into the \u201cSlippery Rock\u201d family, and teaching me so much about our event.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I lost a mentor this week.\u00a0\u00a0But I, and my other \u201cpole vault friends\u201d, will continue to carry on what he taught and inspired us to do.\u00a0\u00a0Thank you Mark, for taking us under your guidance.\u00a0\u00a0I know you never vaulted, but I bet there\u2019s water-ski jumping in heaven.\u00a0\u00a0Your knees are perfect now:\u00a0\u00a0Jump high and long.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Sunday Story Series<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

2021<\/h4>\n\n\n\n