Circle of Trust

Sometimes you’re just going to take one in the balls.

Coach Kloepfer lined up all the freshman boys and had us give pole vaulting a try during one of the very early season indoor track practices.  We used a practice pole which is basically a long metal stick.  Those that did not injure themselves, opt out, or failed to make it into the mats passed.  I was the lone freshman boy to survive and so began my career as a vaulter.

Fast forward to my senior year and I had improved greatly, but our equipment had not.  We had fiberglass poles, but they were worn and tired.  Thankfully, coach ordered new poles for the ’93 indoor/outdoor season.  The poles arrived on a late Friday afternoon before a Saturday morning meet.  I met with coach and three other JV vaulters for a special practice that night.  The poles were beautiful.  Bright neon green, lighter, stronger and longer.  It was like Christmas.  Everything clicked for me almost immediately.  My steps were on and I improved my PR that night by two feet.  Then, Saturday morning came.

I arrived with more nerves than usual and nothing from the night before was clicking.  I was way off on my steps and my first practice vault in warm-ups was disastrous.  It was all downhill from that point.  I knew things were off when I started down the runway to the box for my first attempt at my starting height.  I under planted severely and the pole bowed into a U shape.  My legs split in flight and the energy stored in the pole snapped back, caught me directly in the balls and flung me across the gym floor.  My dad told me that trainer Dan was by my side almost immediately as the crowd assembled started to ask each other if they thought I could ever have kids.  I remember trainer Dan telling me that I had to move my hands once in the training room.  He explained that he needed to make sure that my balls did not get pushed up into my body cavity by the blow.  The hit looked that violent.  Thankfully, my balls ended up being just fine.

I found myself at practice that next Monday with the same pole in my hand that had turned on me so suddenly.  It was a “get back on the horse” moment.  I could either risk taking one in the balls again or pack it in and call it a career.  I chose to risk it and was rewarded by setting the indoor vault record for our school weeks later.  I’ve been told that record would stand for quite some time.

This was a watershed moment for me as a young man and I hope this is not coming off as a humble brag.  The moral of this story is that life is going to catch us in the balls (figuratively and literally) at times.  Sometimes all you can and need to do is pick up your pole and take that first step.  I hope you’ll be able to think about my balls when faced with a similar challenging situation, laugh, pick up your pole and start speeding down the runway with everything you’ve got.