What got you started?

[VaultPurple]

I was just wondering which sports most people did before they got into pole vaulting. You can choose as many as you want, but only put it if it was a sport you were serious about and not just something you did because you were 4 and your parents signed you up for.


For me it was baseball and soccer from age 4 through middle school, then motocross, xc, and swimming up untill pole vault took over my junior year of high school.


Wish there would have been more gymnastics though... my bet is a lot of the girls on here started with gymnastics but most guys came from baseball and soccer.

[KirkB]

I think you should add volleyball to the list.

Kirk

[VaultPurple]

only enough room for 10.... you can write in if you want.

[Thats.What.She.Said]

soccer and basketball for me. i was sooo big on soccer before pole vault took over my life. and i never did gymnastics, the closest i came was a week of gymnastics camp when i was 4 and again when i was 6, and the gymnastics that we did in gym class

[pvchick]

12 years of gymnastics before starting pole vault..and another 4 years of gymnastics while i also did pole vault. i didnt even want to pole vault my freshman year and the track coaches forced me to try it because i had done gymnastics for so long. im pretty happy they forced me to try it now. haha

[Split]

Football was pretty big for me. My brother also played there but never ran track, so he never got to pole vault.
Everyone expected me to follow in his steps and become the next big thing at wide receiver, but a change of coaches left me feeling out of place, and I enjoyed myself much more in track so I stuck with it. That and I was obssesed with pole vaulting.

[somechick]

I didn't do any sports really. I was always an athletic kid, went out and rode bikes built stuff played games but I never really did sports. I tried a few in elementary school a season of basketball, track, volleyball etc. Nothing serious. My now husband and I were dating my Senior year in high school and he had the school record. I went and watched him a few times and he asked me to try it. Eh, what the hell. So I did, I was good enough for a beginner. Senior year was the first time season I vaulted and I took a year off after that while my husband went on to Cuesta and vaulted with Jan Johnson.

I took the year off thinking I wasn't good enough to keep going in the sport in college. Had it not been for my husband asking me to jump one day at Jan's I probably never would have picked up a pole again. Jan encouraged me to join the team and I vaulted for 2 years in SLO before transferring.

Kasey and Jan, that's what got me started.

[Pogo Stick]

Lot of games - soccer and basketball mostly, lot of swimming during summer, nothing organized. Some long jump in school competitions. At the time of Bruce Lee mania, went to karate (full contact) for 3 years - got blue belt. At 16 started with track & field. After one year of long jumping and general T&F took the pole for the first time.