Oakwood Track and Field is home to several different activities ranging from long distance running to shotput. However, a newer event for the team continues to grow. The team added the polevault event several years ago. Junior Joey Caley is a pole vaulter for the team.

Q: What sport(s) do you do?

A: I participate in track. I am a pole vaulter on the team.

Q:  What’s your favorite part about that sport?

A: I like improving my times and heights outdoors as an individual athlete to best help the team succeed.

Q: What makes your sport different than other sports?

A: The focus on you, the athlete, improving yourself at specific events to help the overall team. You are given a lot more independence to improve and focus on your skills without being slotted into a role.

Q: How much have you improved from previous years?

A:I’ve cut down my hurdle times and increased my pole vault height by 3 feet. I’ve also enjoyed improving my skills and comfort in those events a lot more. Being able to finally bend the pole when I vault or smoothly run and hurdle with little to slow me down feels awesome.

Q: How often do you practice and how do you do it?

A: I usually run and pole vault at the weekly spring track practices and prep throughout the winter during the team conditioning days. Conditioning is usually just running, lifting weights, or doing exercises while practices do involve running, but also include time to work on hurdle technique, vaulting skills like planting the pole and swinging, or baton exchanges. During most practices though, I spend a lot of my time vaulting due to the technique needed to do it.

Q: What makes pole vaulting difficult?

A: Pole vault requires a lot of preparation to do well. Before you even try to vault, you need a lot of equipment and athleticism. After that, you spend a lot of time drilling the technique as pole vault is a very technical event. It’s very difficult to pull off a perfect vault consistently. And even at meets, having your steps and standards-the two towers that hold the bar up-set correctly is vital to making sure your vault is good.

Q: How developed is the pole vaulting section of track?

A: Oakwood has a pretty good, albeit basic setup. Our equipment is relatively new and we keep it in good condition, so our pit, standards, bar, and runway are in very good condition. It would be nice to have a few more facilities though, such as a rope vault as a lot of teams use other facilities to further hone their technique.

Q: What’s something fun that you do with the track team?

A: Before important meets we occasionally go to breakfast before school. We also will go to Dairy Queen if we have a light practice.

Q: How did you become interested in track and pole vaulting?

A: I became interested in track when I didn’t make the junior high baseball team in seventh grade. I instead did track, and decided to return to it after doing baseball in 8th grade. As for pole vault, I became interested in it on the recommendation of Jack Huang, a senior pole vaulter at the time. He encouraged me to do it since he knew me from when we did taekwondo together. From there I just came to really like the sport.

By: Jack Degenhart

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