http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/sports/2450811
Pole vaulting has Hinshaw feeling good
By MICHAEL MURPHY
Copyright 2004 Houston Chronicle
From bored athlete in search of a challenge to All-America track andfield athlete. All in a span of just over three years.
Seems improbable, right?
Maybe so, but that's the path traveled by Rice's Beth Hinshaw, who tied for seventh last week in the pole vault at the 2004 NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships in Fayetteville, Ark., and earned All-America honors.
Three years ago, Hinshaw, a junior who now entertains thoughts of perhaps one day competing in the Olympics, had never even picked up a pole.
"I came here in my freshman year, and I just got bored," said Hinshaw, who matched the school record she shares with teammate Ally Daum when she cleared 13-3 1/2 in Fayetteville. "In high school (at Elkins), they always wanted me to run track because I was fast, but I hated running. I remember thinking that if I could do anything, it would be the pole vault because it looked like fun.
"I was a gymnast for about 15 years, but when I got bored I called the track coaches and said, `Hey, I want to pole vault.' They didn't even have a pole-vault coach at the time.
"They said, `Come on out here and let's see what you can do,' but I told them that I really just wanted to pole vault. I didn't know a thing about pole vaulting. I didn't even know which end of the pole went where or what I was doing, but I started."
Hinshaw has been working under volunteer assistant coach David Butler, who deals primarily with the pole vault. Before working with the Rice program, Butler put in almost two decades at Memorial High School, where he coached Daum, a record-setting vaulter who was heading to Rice.
"They thought, `Hey, if Ally was coming to Rice as a pole vaulter, we could start a pole-vault program.' " Butler said. "So they called me up and said, `You want to come to Rice?' I said, `Awesome.' "
Which pretty much describes Hinshaw's transformation. It took almost a year to get a handle on the basics, but once Hinshaw cleared the bar for the first time, she was hooked.
"That was right before the first collegiate meet I ever went to," said Hinshaw, the daughter of Roger Hinshaw, the defensive coordinator on Ken Hatfield's football staff. "I cleared something like 9 feet right before I left, and then I went to the meet and cleared 10-2.
"It was kind of scary at first. At first you're making these huge gains, but now you have to spend so much time doing these little movements over and over again, just trying to get a two- or three-inch improvement. But two inches can mean the difference between Olympic-trials qualifying and just being an average pole vaulter."
And Hinshaw is far from average. Butler seems amazed at the rapid progress his protégé has made from blank slate to WAC indoor champion.
"She's only in her third year of fiberglass vaulting, and that's very young for a vaulter," Butler said. "If she can continue, it's quite possible she can go 15 feet and be one of the best in the nation. She certainly can qualify for the Olympic trials if she works on some things."
An Olympian? Hinshaw is still trying to adjust to being an All-America, a feeling she called "a little strange."
"(The Olympics) is the ultimate dream," said Hinshaw, who will skip this week's TSU Relays at Rice Track/Soccer Stadium. "Right now I'm just trying to get better, so it's not really a concept right now.
"It's kind of something where you work in these levels, and my next little step is qualifying for regionals. After that, it's qualifying for nationals. After that, then you start thinking (about the Olympics).
"The thing that kills you sometimes is looking too far forward. But you have to do all those little steps between that in order to get there. But that's definitely a goal."