Photo by: All Pro Photography/Dale Sparks
Gardner Vaults to a Spot Among Nation's Best
May 18, 2018 03:03 PM | Track & Field
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - Not long after Maddie Gardner was just a toddler in Williamstown, West Virginia, her parents, Jeff and Lisa, figured gymnastics might be the safest thing for her to do.
At least there was padding in gymnastics, they figured.
Little Maddie had become quite the gate climber when she was little and when two gates stacked on top of each other weren't enough to keep her confined to one room, they had to figure out something else to do with their little daredevil.
Gymnastics served her well until a serious ankle injury in high school forced Maddie to do a little recalibrating. She needed something, in her words, a "little bit lower impact" so she decided to take up track.
Williamstown High has one of the elite track programs in the state and Maddie's athletic ability made her a natural in the sprinting events. Seeking a way to squeeze a few more points out of his roster for the state meet, her coach figured Maddie might be able to score for them in the pole vault as well.
She was fast enough to get down the runway; she had the nerve of a cat burglar and was springy enough from doing gymnastics all those years to blow over the bar. All she needed to do was reach 10 feet to win the state meet and that wasn't going to be a much of a problem for Maddie, a state champion in the 200 and 400-meter sprints.
"I pole vaulted for about two months and it went well," she recalled. "I didn't go very high, but in West Virginia, (pole vault) is not all that competitive."
Gardner wasn't going to go anywhere in college in the pole vault with a PR of 10 feet, 6 inches, but she did have some offers from Marshall and Winthrop as a multi-event athlete.
But those schools really didn't move the needle for her. West Virginia University did. When she got accepted into school on the Promise Scholarship, however, she was resigned to the fact that her track career was probably finished.
Her Williamstown coaches thought otherwise, believing Gardner had a lot more left her in tank so they began sending WVU volunteer coach San Hensh emails about her. Hensh, who works specifically with the Mountaineer pole vaulters, finally agreed to meet her - probably to keep from getting even more emails from her persistent high school coaches.
"I met with him and we talked about it, but it was up in the air if they were going to let me on the team and then right before school started he called me and said I could be on the team," Gardner recalled.
Fast-forward to four years later, and it turns out one of the last athletes allowed on the track team that year has become one the best athletes at West Virginia University. Actually, she's one of the best athletes in the country.
"She's one of the bright, shining lights in our program right now," veteran coach Sean Cleary beamed.
Of course, there is a backstory to this as well.
Gardner earned a spot on the roster as a pole vaulter, but she was faster than some of the sprinters West Virginia had on the team at the time so she began working out with them, too. Some days she trained with the pole vaulters other days she worked out with the sprinters - a jack of all trades, a master of none.
"We were fighting what to do with her," Cleary admitted. "When Maddie came in, we didn't have any sprinters capable of competing in the Big 12, and although she really didn't have Big 12 sprint ability, we were considering using her as a sprinter. The fight was ultimately won by the vault coach, and he got her full-time instead of part time.
"It's been a good decision."
Yeah, you could say that.
Gardner's vault of 14 feet, 5 ½ inches at the Virginia Challenge earlier this spring is the sixth-best performance in the country this year. She went from jumping roughly 10 feet as a senior in high school to comfortably exceeding 14 feet as a junior in college, an increase of about a foot per year.
That's unheard of.
Each time she broke a new barrier - from 11 feet to 12 feet to 13 feet- it was simply a matter of her barreling down the runway as fast as she could and using her power and gymnastics instincts to sail over the bar.
Any discussion of pole vaulting technique was a like speaking a foreign language to her.
"I had a good coach in high school, ending with my sister Ellie (also a pole vaulter on the WVU track team). They had 15 year's-worth of state-champion girls, so I came from a good program, but pole vaulting for just two months, there was only so much I could take from him," Gardner admitted.
So, whenever Hensh had the pole vaulters assembled to talk about drills or techniques he would usually have to pull Maddie off to the side afterward to explain it in much greater detail so she could understand what he was talking about.
"I came in and all of these people knew things, and I had no idea," she giggled. "Everything San would tell me, he had to explain it in a completely dumbed-down way."
For the first couple of years, Maddie just kept her mouth shut whenever she was around other pole vaulters because she didn't want them to know how little she knew about what she was doing.
Her freshman and sophomore years Maddie was basically Evel Knievel at the meets each weekend. The crashes and burns were sometimes spectacular.
"It was embarrassing for a while," she laughed. "No matter what, I was going for it."
But she was getting better. And, more importantly, she was learning.
Eventually, Gardner figured out a way to harness all of that natural athleticism and ability she had. She hit a turning point in her college career last spring when she reached 13 feet, five inches at Virginia, and later placed eighth at Big 12 outdoors and qualified for regionals at the end of the season.
Then came 14 feet earlier this year, a significant achievement.
She said she's scaled 14 feet "six or seven times" now, putting her on a much different level than she once was. Her showing at the Virginia Challenge makes her one of the favorites to reach NCAA nationals in Eugene, Oregon, in early June.
She was also a favorite at Big 12s, her personal Waterloo.
She failed to make height during Big 12 indoors and placed just fourth at outdoors last weekend, which actually was a four-spot improvement from last season's eighth-place finish.
She views both performances philosophically.
"Coming off the no-height at Big 12 and the lull that I hit after I started jumping really well, I learned a lot," Gardner admitted of her midseason slump.
After failing to place at Big 12 indoors, she pulled herself back together to finish ninth at indoor nationals with a jump of 14 feet 1 ¾ inches. Gardner didn't quite reach the podium, but she learned how to deal with the pressure of performing in high-tension, big-meet atmosphere.
"I'm not going to say I was happy with it because I got ninth, but I learned a lot and I'm hoping for higher than ninth this time," she said.
But first things first. She has to advance beyond next weekend's East Regionals in Tampa by beating 12 other competitors before getting to Eugene, where the top 24 pole vaulters in the country will vie for one of the eight spots necessary to achieve All-America status.
Four others, including pole vaulter Sara Finfrock, will be in Tampa competing alongside Gardner. Cleary believes the height Maddie has already surpassed this year is good enough to get her to Oregon in June.
"All of the girls that beat her at Big 12 will be at nationals, or should be, so that performance was good enough for her to make it," he said. "To make the podium in the top eight at the end of the year, I think all she has to do is hit what she's already hit."
Gardner said her primary goal in Tampa is to simply survive and advance.
"There is no need to beat ourselves up there," she explained. "Besides, as soon as they get to 12 left they stop the meet anyway."
If Gardner continues her dramatic improvement, it may alter her career plans a little bit. She is almost finished with her biomedical engineering degree and is eyeing a lucrative job in that field once she finishes college, but her continued improvement may force her to consider a post-collegiate track career.
She's not the tallest pole vaulter around, standing 5-feet-5 inches with most of the elite ones standing taller than 6 feet, but her speed and athleticism have equalized things.
Plus, she's still extremely raw. It's likely all five pole vaulters ranked ahead of her have far more experience than she has right now.
"I have a long ways to go with technique, which is exciting for me because I have another year left so this summer and fall we can really dial down on that and hopefully jump higher," she explained. "I still go a lot off of running full-speed down the runway and hitting it as hard as I can."
What does she do if reaches 15 feet sometime over the next 12 months, putting her in rarified air? Would she consider postponing her post-college job opportunities a little bit longer to scale even greater heights?
"I really don't know how to answer that right now," she said. "I think it will depend on where the next year takes me, my job opportunities and where life takes me."
No matter what direction she ultimately chooses, it's pretty clear Maddie Gardner is headed skyward. The gates her parents once stacked on top of each other to hold her back have long since been removed.
At least there was padding in gymnastics, they figured.
Little Maddie had become quite the gate climber when she was little and when two gates stacked on top of each other weren't enough to keep her confined to one room, they had to figure out something else to do with their little daredevil.
Gymnastics served her well until a serious ankle injury in high school forced Maddie to do a little recalibrating. She needed something, in her words, a "little bit lower impact" so she decided to take up track.
Williamstown High has one of the elite track programs in the state and Maddie's athletic ability made her a natural in the sprinting events. Seeking a way to squeeze a few more points out of his roster for the state meet, her coach figured Maddie might be able to score for them in the pole vault as well.
She was fast enough to get down the runway; she had the nerve of a cat burglar and was springy enough from doing gymnastics all those years to blow over the bar. All she needed to do was reach 10 feet to win the state meet and that wasn't going to be a much of a problem for Maddie, a state champion in the 200 and 400-meter sprints.
"I pole vaulted for about two months and it went well," she recalled. "I didn't go very high, but in West Virginia, (pole vault) is not all that competitive."
Gardner wasn't going to go anywhere in college in the pole vault with a PR of 10 feet, 6 inches, but she did have some offers from Marshall and Winthrop as a multi-event athlete.
But those schools really didn't move the needle for her. West Virginia University did. When she got accepted into school on the Promise Scholarship, however, she was resigned to the fact that her track career was probably finished.
Her Williamstown coaches thought otherwise, believing Gardner had a lot more left her in tank so they began sending WVU volunteer coach San Hensh emails about her. Hensh, who works specifically with the Mountaineer pole vaulters, finally agreed to meet her - probably to keep from getting even more emails from her persistent high school coaches.
"I met with him and we talked about it, but it was up in the air if they were going to let me on the team and then right before school started he called me and said I could be on the team," Gardner recalled.
Fast-forward to four years later, and it turns out one of the last athletes allowed on the track team that year has become one the best athletes at West Virginia University. Actually, she's one of the best athletes in the country.
"She's one of the bright, shining lights in our program right now," veteran coach Sean Cleary beamed.
Of course, there is a backstory to this as well.
Gardner earned a spot on the roster as a pole vaulter, but she was faster than some of the sprinters West Virginia had on the team at the time so she began working out with them, too. Some days she trained with the pole vaulters other days she worked out with the sprinters - a jack of all trades, a master of none.
"We were fighting what to do with her," Cleary admitted. "When Maddie came in, we didn't have any sprinters capable of competing in the Big 12, and although she really didn't have Big 12 sprint ability, we were considering using her as a sprinter. The fight was ultimately won by the vault coach, and he got her full-time instead of part time.
"It's been a good decision."
Yeah, you could say that.
Gardner's vault of 14 feet, 5 ½ inches at the Virginia Challenge earlier this spring is the sixth-best performance in the country this year. She went from jumping roughly 10 feet as a senior in high school to comfortably exceeding 14 feet as a junior in college, an increase of about a foot per year.
That's unheard of.
Each time she broke a new barrier - from 11 feet to 12 feet to 13 feet- it was simply a matter of her barreling down the runway as fast as she could and using her power and gymnastics instincts to sail over the bar.
Any discussion of pole vaulting technique was a like speaking a foreign language to her.
"I had a good coach in high school, ending with my sister Ellie (also a pole vaulter on the WVU track team). They had 15 year's-worth of state-champion girls, so I came from a good program, but pole vaulting for just two months, there was only so much I could take from him," Gardner admitted.
So, whenever Hensh had the pole vaulters assembled to talk about drills or techniques he would usually have to pull Maddie off to the side afterward to explain it in much greater detail so she could understand what he was talking about.
"I came in and all of these people knew things, and I had no idea," she giggled. "Everything San would tell me, he had to explain it in a completely dumbed-down way."
For the first couple of years, Maddie just kept her mouth shut whenever she was around other pole vaulters because she didn't want them to know how little she knew about what she was doing.
Her freshman and sophomore years Maddie was basically Evel Knievel at the meets each weekend. The crashes and burns were sometimes spectacular.
"It was embarrassing for a while," she laughed. "No matter what, I was going for it."
But she was getting better. And, more importantly, she was learning.
Eventually, Gardner figured out a way to harness all of that natural athleticism and ability she had. She hit a turning point in her college career last spring when she reached 13 feet, five inches at Virginia, and later placed eighth at Big 12 outdoors and qualified for regionals at the end of the season.
Then came 14 feet earlier this year, a significant achievement.
She said she's scaled 14 feet "six or seven times" now, putting her on a much different level than she once was. Her showing at the Virginia Challenge makes her one of the favorites to reach NCAA nationals in Eugene, Oregon, in early June.
She was also a favorite at Big 12s, her personal Waterloo.
She failed to make height during Big 12 indoors and placed just fourth at outdoors last weekend, which actually was a four-spot improvement from last season's eighth-place finish.
She views both performances philosophically.
"Coming off the no-height at Big 12 and the lull that I hit after I started jumping really well, I learned a lot," Gardner admitted of her midseason slump.
After failing to place at Big 12 indoors, she pulled herself back together to finish ninth at indoor nationals with a jump of 14 feet 1 ¾ inches. Gardner didn't quite reach the podium, but she learned how to deal with the pressure of performing in high-tension, big-meet atmosphere.
"I'm not going to say I was happy with it because I got ninth, but I learned a lot and I'm hoping for higher than ninth this time," she said.
But first things first. She has to advance beyond next weekend's East Regionals in Tampa by beating 12 other competitors before getting to Eugene, where the top 24 pole vaulters in the country will vie for one of the eight spots necessary to achieve All-America status.
Four others, including pole vaulter Sara Finfrock, will be in Tampa competing alongside Gardner. Cleary believes the height Maddie has already surpassed this year is good enough to get her to Oregon in June.
"All of the girls that beat her at Big 12 will be at nationals, or should be, so that performance was good enough for her to make it," he said. "To make the podium in the top eight at the end of the year, I think all she has to do is hit what she's already hit."
Gardner said her primary goal in Tampa is to simply survive and advance.
"There is no need to beat ourselves up there," she explained. "Besides, as soon as they get to 12 left they stop the meet anyway."
If Gardner continues her dramatic improvement, it may alter her career plans a little bit. She is almost finished with her biomedical engineering degree and is eyeing a lucrative job in that field once she finishes college, but her continued improvement may force her to consider a post-collegiate track career.
She's not the tallest pole vaulter around, standing 5-feet-5 inches with most of the elite ones standing taller than 6 feet, but her speed and athleticism have equalized things.
Plus, she's still extremely raw. It's likely all five pole vaulters ranked ahead of her have far more experience than she has right now.
"I have a long ways to go with technique, which is exciting for me because I have another year left so this summer and fall we can really dial down on that and hopefully jump higher," she explained. "I still go a lot off of running full-speed down the runway and hitting it as hard as I can."
What does she do if reaches 15 feet sometime over the next 12 months, putting her in rarified air? Would she consider postponing her post-college job opportunities a little bit longer to scale even greater heights?
"I really don't know how to answer that right now," she said. "I think it will depend on where the next year takes me, my job opportunities and where life takes me."
No matter what direction she ultimately chooses, it's pretty clear Maddie Gardner is headed skyward. The gates her parents once stacked on top of each other to hold her back have long since been removed.
Players Mentioned
Pole Vault
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