Flying above the crowd can be a blast
State champ Mitchell Erickson hits the heights by specializing in the pole vault
Barry Temkin
On High Schools
May 27, 2007
CHARLESTON, Ill. --
In sports, specialization gets about as much love as Barry Bonds does.
Many a fan will tell you that too many kids are playing too few sports,
often in some quixotic pursuit of an athletic scholarship.
Truth is, though, there are thousands of multisport kids in high
school. Another truth is it sometimes makes perfect sense not to be one
of them.
Mitchell Erickson of Marian Catholic proved the latter at the Class AA
state track meet Saturday at Eastern Illinois, clearing 16 feet 9
inches to win the pole vault against one of the best fields in meet
history.
As a sophomore last spring, he showed promise with a vault of 14 feet,
but he hadn't started vaulting until his freshman year and likely had
been impeding his own progress by playing basketball for Marian
Catholic in the winter. After reaching the state meet last spring but
failing to make the finals, he dumped hoops for life as a full-time
pole vaulter.
"I thought track might be the way to get a scholarship," he said. "I focused on this and started to improve."
The way he improved you would have thought he was going airborne in a
rocket rather than by holding on to a pole. In December, in his first
meet of his first indoor season, he boosted his personal record by a
foot to 15 feet.
He quickly worked his p.r. up to 15-7 but struggled March 31 in the
Illinois Prep Top Times Indoor Classic, the unofficial state indoor
meet, clearing just 14 feet to tie for ninth place.
"I kind of choked," he said. "I was looking to avenge that."
Revenge has been as emphatic as it has been sweet. In the recent East
Suburban Catholic Conference meet, he cleared a personal record 16-5 to
establish himself as one of the best young pole vaulters in the country.
Still, he was not a clear-cut favorite in a loaded field that included
four other 16-foot pole vaulters. Three of them—Lincoln-Way East's Joe
Noonan (16-6) Rolling Meadows' Andy Ryan (16-3) and Kaneland's Sam
Kranz (16-0)—reached that height Saturday, but none could match
Erickson.
Noonan had the best shot, joining Erickson in clearing 16-6. He had
more misses than Erickson, though, and would lose a tiebreaker, so when
Erickson cleared 16-9 Noonan passed on his last two attempts at that
height and the two settled the issue at 17-1.
Neither made the height, which was a half-inch above the state record
Edwardsville's Daren McDonough set in 1992. Only McDonough has jumped
higher than Erickson at an Illinois state meet, and since 1992 only two
other vaulters have reached 16 feet.
"Other years, 15-6, 16 feet would have done it," Erickson said. "It was just amazing, the quality of the jumpers this year."
Equally amazing is that Marian Catholic produced both of this year's
Class AA pole vault champs. A week earlier here, Marian Catholic senior
Melissa Gergel cleared 12-6 to win the girls title.
The two won gold even though their school has no pole vault facility.
They have traveled a short distance to Bloom to train under volunteer
coach Tim Johnson. Johnson won state pole vault titles at Bloom in 1973
and 1974 and later produced a p.r. of 18-21/2.
"It's kind of a coop thing," Johnson said jokingly of working with
vaulters from the two Chicago Heights schools. "It has paid off big
time."
In Erickson's case, big means a mind-boggling 2-foot-9-inch improvement in a year.
"Just working hard," he said by way of explanation. "Working all
year-round with Tim Johnson. Just working my tail off to do better."
The great ones always have something extra, though, and Johnson
believes a key to Erickson's success is his ability to rotate in the
air as he soars toward the bar.
"He has figured my system out," Johnson said. "He is as close to vaulting the way I visualize it in my head as anyone I've had.
"And he'll get stronger, faster ... just do better."
Erickson plans to do it in two or three major national postseason
meets. He reacted to his title Saturday with a calm that suggested that
while his ascent has been rapid, it has hardly been dizzying, and that
a 17-foot vault isn't far off.
"I'm not that surprised," he said of his improvement. "I'm confident in what I'm doing."
