David Butler - PV @ Rice Article

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Olympians to octogenarians invited to pole vault at Rice
By: Mike Williams 11/04/2007
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Jogging, tennis, weights, aerobics. There are all kind of ways for a person of a certain age to stay in shape.
But we bet it never occurred to you that pole vaulting is a viable option.

It is, and proof can be found on the athletic fields at Rice University where, three nights a week, vaulters young and old learn to take a flying leap - for the challenge, for the workout and for fun.
David Butler, a coach at Rice since 2000, invites "pole vaulters of all ages" to try their hand at a sport most people only pay attention to once every four years, when the Summer Olympics enter the common consciousness.

"But you'd be surprised," said Butler during a practice session last week. "There are competitions for all age groups, from young kids to masters, and some of them are 80 years old. And they go all over the world to compete."

Butler has had students in their 60s and 70s come out to play during his time at Rice, but at dusk last Thursday, his crew consisted of seven or eight young men and women - some high schoolers, some collegians and one Butler described as "a local businesswoman who just likes to pole vault." They took turns sprinting down the lane with long, lightweight poles toward the pit, with the intention of becoming inverted pendulums.
The bungee that served as a bar was at 14 or 15 feet, said Butler. "We're doing short-run stuff to get technique," he explained. "You can take more reps with a shorter run, lower grips and a shorter pole than you would if you were running from all the way back there. It's early in the season, so everybody's doing technical work."

Still, it looked hard. The college men, who'd clearly had some training (one is a former All-American with his eye on the Olympic trials, Butler said), got up and over the bungee most of the time, while the women worked on mechanics, going for proper form while keeping their bodies low, beneath the rope.

Butler, 53, is dedicated enough to the sport to spend hours at it every week, commuting from his day job as an art teacher at Spring Branch Middle School to Rice for afternoon practice with the university team and evening sessions for everybody else.

Why would anybody not training for competition try pole vaulting? "It's a mental, emotional and physical challenge," the coach said. "You're lifting your own body weight, you're doing gymnastics and you're doing sprinting all at the same time. It's a fear-evoking event, so you can call it the oldest X Game ever. It's been around forever. I have paintings of vaulters in Japan back in 1760, vaulting with bamboo."
Butler developed his passion for the sport as a vaulter at Ball State in Indiana, and then while pursuing his graduate degree at the University of Tennessee. He subsequently coached at Memorial High School for 18 years before joining Rice.

He said most walk-ons, who pay $35 for their first session ($30 for regulars), come back for more. "It's the kind of event that makes you different," Butler said. "There's not many people who do it. They don't understand it, and so those who work at it take a lot of pride in being a vaulter."

Want to give it a try? Butler, a member of the USA Pole Vault Development Staff, invites one and all to his mini-clinics, usually held on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays at the Rice University Track at University Boulevard and Main Street, Houston. E-mail him or call for details.

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