James Weiss setting bar high (PA)

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Weiss setting bar high

By: DAN DUNKIN
The Intelligencer
Quakertown's James Weiss was a freshman when he started pole vaulting. It didn't take him long to set the bar high.

That year he was watching Pennsylvania state pole vault record-holder Joe Berry, of Hatboro-Horsham (now a star junior at Tennessee), and Weiss, despite his inexperience, envisioned himself reaching similar heights.

"I wanted to be just like him," Weiss said.

Berry's state meet record vault is 16 feet. Weiss' goal is to break that record in this, his senior year, and he's making serious progress.

"He definitely has a shot at it," says Quakertown boys indoor track coach Jason McFadden.

Weiss' personal best of 15-3, achieved on Jan. 16, is the state indoor best this season. And it's 5 feet, 3 inches higher than his freshman year best, when Weiss began vaulting just for fun "and knew I could be good at this."

Pole vaulting requires a rare combination of athleticism and courage. The athlete sprints down a runway, plants a fiberglass or carbon fiber pole in a small box and immediately hurls the body vertically, twisting the legs up toward the bar while maintaining strength and body control in conjunction with the flexible pole.

"It's not for everyone," smiles Weiss, admitting he was nervous before his first vault as a freshman. "If you have good form, and you're not vaulting stupidly on way too big of a pole, you're going to be safe. Unfortunately, there are a lot of high school kids who don't follow that rule.

"I guess it takes a lot of courage. You need to be everything to be a pole vaulter - you need to be a sprinter, a gymnast, a track athlete."

Weiss credits much of his success to Quakertown assistant coach John Farrell, Jr., who has overseen his vaulting since his freshman year. Weiss also does specialized workouts at Vertical Assault, a Bethlehem-based pole vaulting club.

Weiss' 10-foot vault set the school freshman record, but then he was disappointed to reach only 11-6 as a sophomore.

"Just bad form and I was too stubborn to change it," he said.

Farrell got him to adjust after the indoor season last year, and Weiss made a big jump in his results. He had a PR of 15 feet outdoors in 2009 and won the district meet as well as the SOL Continental.

"It was mostly my takeoff, when I first leave the ground," Weiss said. "I fixed my position a lot and created a lot better angle."

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Weiss was second at outdoor states in 2009 but disappointed with his 14-6 vault. "I'm the kind of person, I don't care about what place I get, I care about how well I jump. And I jumped under my PR," Weiss said, adding with a smile, "I was too excited. There were so many people there. PA states is insane."

Weiss had the state best vault heading into outdoors states last year, so holding the indoor season best this year, he figures, just makes him a more visible target for strong competitors like William Tennent's Mick Coleman. Coleman set a PR of 15-0 to nudge Weiss for the win at the PTFCA Indoor Track Carnival at Lehigh University on Saturday.

"I need to jump higher, I know that," Weiss said. "I've jumped well so far. I've been training pretty hard."

Setting the bar high will pay off in a track scholarship for Weiss, who is weighing possibilities with Miami of Ohio and Rutgers, among others. Rutgers associate head coach Kevin Kelly was a standout at Quakertown.

"I did not expect him to do as well as he has," McFadden said. "But he's probably got the best pole vault coach in the league. You need to have courage to be able to throw yourself over that bar. You've got to have no fear. That's something he has, something I didn't think he had in him, but I was dead wrong."