See them fly

It is an incredible feeling: the pole catapulting you high into the air, and then the rush of falling back to earth onto the pit.

This is the sentiment expressed by local athletes as they anticipate competing at the 2015 North American Pole Vault Championship starting at 5 p.m. Friday, July 24 in Old Town Clovis.

The meet is directed by Fresno State coaches Bob Fraley and Brian Yakamoto in partnership with the Business Organization of Old Town. It is one of the few street vault events still held and brings world-class athletes from throughout the country to Clovis. Seven qualifying teams, including a team from Clovis, will participate.

The event, which draws huge crowds, will give the public a chance to get close to the action, as it is in the midst of the Old Town Clovis Farmers Market.

“Street vaults are one of the most fun [meets],” said Mallory Gilbert, one of the members of the Clovis team. “The spectators get to be right up in the pits. In a regular meet, people are in the stands and they sound far away. There is something special about the kids and the fans being right there.”

Gilbert graduated from Clovis High and University of Hawaii. She coached at Clovis East and currently trains in pole vault at the World Athletic Center in Phoenix, Ariz. She is joined by three other athletes on the Clovis team: Shelby Noble is a senior at Clovis West; Nicklaus Wilcot is a recent Clovis West graduate who plans to attend Cal Poly in the fall and Brad Beekman is a Clovis East graduate and a junior at Cal Poly.

Wilcot said he joined pole vault his freshman year, like many of the others on the team. He wanted to be part of something, and he’s turned out to be a good athlete, Fraley said. After trying pole vault, Noble said she gave up her other sports to focus on it.

Gilbert was a heptathlete in college, meaning she competed in seven events in track, but that did not include pole vaulting. While she was coaching in Clovis, another coach encouraged her to try it. “When I took off from the ground for the first time, I thought, ‘This is awesome.’”

She has since learned how incredible pole vault is. “It is intriguing to watch. It has such a wow factor. People think ‘I can never do that,’” she said. “I have learned so much from it. So many lessons from pole vaulting translate into the real world — risk taking, focus, goal setting, dream setting. I think the people willing to take the risk to learn it are going to take risks to make a difference in the world.”

“It is more mental than anything. Being strong in the mind is huge [in pole vault],” said Beekman. “I’ve had a lot of good experiences and bad. I have Type 1 diabetes. It is hard to manage pole vault, because I can never be in charge of my body. But I slightly PRed every year since I started,” which means he exceeded his personal best, jumping higher than the year before. This, Gilbert said, is pretty incredible and not easy to accomplish.

“Pole vault is the most difficult event there is,” said Fraley. “It takes a lot of athletic ability.”

Fraley is a 28-year Fresno State coach who has revolutionized the sport of pole vault in several ways. Fraley helped push the U.S. and college systems to include women in the pole vault in 1999, after being told that “women can’t jump.” Now, he said, women’s pole vault is one of the most popular events in track.

He also influenced the change from giving the athletes three minutes to jump to one minute. He made a suggestion to shorten the time during a hot and humid meet in New Orleans, to keep people from leaving. The unexpected result was that the athletes were achieving greater height than before, and the time limit was changed.

That trip to New Orleans, and a unplanned visit to Old Town Clovis, also helped him revitalize the sport through the development of street vault meets, starting here in Clovis.

Two decades ago, Fraley observed that track was stagnating. People weren’t interested. He was invited by coaches at Louisiana State to a street pole vault meet in the French Quarter with the promise, “We’ll show you how to do this.”

He saw how people were crowded around, cheering even if they didn’t know the athletes, as local music played. He decided he wanted to plan national meets like that. Later, he and Yakamoto made a stop in Old Town Clovis in the midst of one of its farmers markets. They were astounded by the crowds and lively activity. They decided to have the meet there.

Years later, it continues to be a premier event for pole vault and a popular tradition in Clovis.

The Clovis athletes said they perform better at these street vault meets.

“There is a lot less stress,” Beekman said. “It’s a fun environment and athletes want to do better because there is no stress.”

Details: www.oldtownclovis.org/north-american-pole-vault-championship.

This story was originally published July 21, 2015 at 5:26 PM with the headline "See them fly."