Mike Zahner article

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http://www.timesargus.com/apps/pbcs.dll ... 004/SPORTS

Jumping for glory

January 2, 2007
Jim Higgins

When an old basketball buddy told me recently he was into pole vaulting all I could think of was, "Gee, not much call for hurdling prison camp fences these days."

Once I got over my image of Steve McQueen in "The Great Escape" clearing the concertina wire by inches, I refocused on Mike Zahner of Marshfield.

Zahner, 59, a bigger, stronger (and older) version of McQueen, managed, while I was playing barb-less softball and tennis three years ago, to win the national pole vaulting championship in his age division.

Since then he has won numerous regional championships and will return to Boston in March for another try at reclaiming his national title. This Friday, he'll drive down to his regular training facility at Dartmouth to compete in the famed Dartmouth Relays, a tournament he has won in the past.

Zahner began his pole vaulting like most of us, with a grade school buddy in the backyard. A six-foot hickory sapling, some shabby rigging, and a pit filled with sawdust "borrowed" from the local mill in New Canaan, Conn. was all they needed.

By the time he was a sophomore in high school he was vaulting 11 feet with a steel pole. As a senior he finished out at 12'6" on a fiberglass pole.

That was nearly the end of story.

"I took a 30 year hiatus," he said. "St. Louis University didn't have a track team so I played club football." That team, he notes, won the national championship a year after he graduated.

He moved to Vermont in 1976, raised a family and had no time for such painful folly.

"But then the kids grew up. I just turned 50, had some time on my hands, and I showed up cold turkey at the 1997 National championships in Boston. I surprised the hell out of myself. I placed 4th and hadn't picked up a pole in 30 years!"

With that impetus he began training in earnest at Dartmouth. Glomming onto the legendary Dartmouth field events coach and Olympic star, Carl Wallin, Zahner followed his mentor's regimen and six years later claimed the national title with a vault of a whisker under ten feet.

Why this late-in-life obsession?

"I just love flying through the air," he said. "It's a total thrill. To explode down a runway, take off, get upside down, and fly. It's quite a rush."

"It's also the ultimate challenge for me physically and mentally. It's a totally different event for me because of my size. For me, because I don't have blazing speed or acrobatic skills, it's about staying in the best possible shape and working on technique."What's it feel like to be a national champ at something? Anything?

"Quite a bit of a rush, actually," he said. "And a lot of people in the Legislature (which he visits frequently in his job as executive director of the Vermont Natural Resources Board) seemed to be impressed at the time."

But his innate modesty comes through. "Frankly, there are not that many people who do it competitively around the country, about 25-40 in each of myriad age groups. So you have to take that into consideration."

Locally, he's practiced with Mark Berry, a coach at U-32 who cleared 12 feet when he was in high school. There's also some younger guys in the Burlington area who still compete. But for years it's just been Zahner hooking up with three N.H. guys and practicing once a week at Dartmouth.

Next up? "Well, for years," he says, I wanted to train for the decathlon, but I can't seem to find the time."

Zahner turns 60 in a few weeks. He's awfully close to having a lot of time on his hands.