Life Lesson for a Pole-Vaulter

Tonight I shall forego my usual thoughts on Inspirational music and concentrate instead on a great lesson learned decades ago by a young man out on his own in the world for the first time and struggling with life’s many temptations.  I shall kid you not and tell you right from the beginning of this tale that the young man in question was I.  The tale is true.

I was a sophomore in college and at spring break, when all my friends went off either skiing in Colorado or partying in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, I, of pole-vaulter fame, went off instead to get a jump on the track season and practice my skills at the University of Illinois.

I had gone to the University of Virginia my freshman year on a track and soccer scholarship where I had tutored under a great college pole-vault coach by the name of Lou Onesty (interestingly enough pronounced like the word “Honesty”).  As a pole-vaulter it had been a wise decision to learn under this man, for he had been the first true pole-vaulting coach I had ever worked under and I had added a full two feet to my best height that previous freshman year.

Trouble was, though I was thrilled with my progress as a pole-vaulter, I was otherwise pretty miserable at UVA and decided to transfer to a small college in Illinois named Principia College where many of my friends attended.

These were difficult times for pole-vaulters.  “Why”, you must ask?  Because literally three years before, at the end of my high-school experience, the pole-vault world had switched from Swedish steal poles to the new and much improved fiber-glass poles and the world records had shot up as never before.  Now, vaulters, instead of muscling up a stiff steel pole, had to learn how to be catapulted by a flexing fiber-glass pole through the air to greater heights than ever before.

I had begun to learn this high art (pardon the pun) the previous year under Coach Onesty and wanted to make sure I was ready for the season by getting a jump on practice.  I had another vaulter friend who invited me to spend spring break with him vaulting at the indoor facility at the University of Illinois.  I jumped at the chance.  (yet another unintended pun)

I had convinced my new coach at Principia College to by me the best new fiber-glass pole which was, at the time, an expensive $250.  I packed this new pole into a plastic tube – 16’ long – and strapped it onto my car and drove off to the U of Illinois for two weeks to practice.

The two weeks of practice went extremely well.  I was bigger, stronger and faster and, working with some of the U of I coaches who generously offered their time, I was getting in great shape and bending that pole like never before to get the snap and lift to thrust me high into the air.  I could see more great progress on the horizon.

They generously allowed me to store my pole in their equipment room at night and gave me a key for free access to this room.

On my last day there, while I tried to squeeze every bit of time on the track I could out of the experience, the coaches left my friend and I alone in the indoor facility at end of day to continue vaulting.  There we remained for another two hours until my friend left for a date.  I told him I would take a few more vaults and then pack up, lock up and leave.  We said our goodbyes and he left me alone in the facility.

I remember deciding to take five more vaults and then go because it was getting late and I still had to pack up my car and do the 250 mile drive back to St. Louis where I lived.  In the hushed quiet of this great indoor track facility I sprinted down the runway at top speed on the first of the five vaults, drove my pole into the box, arched back and as I gave it everything I had, felt the pole bend as never before and prepared for its catapult thrust.

And then, while in mid-vault, the sound like the roar of a shotgun, blasted through the arena.  I felt the tensions of the vault go immediately soft and found myself flying awkwardly through the air and landing crazily to the side of the runway entirely missing the foam landing-pit.  I was not hurt, but I was immediately devastated because my expensive fiber-glass pole, which was hollow, had shattered in my hands at the result of the powerful bend.

I had heard of poles breaking before, but it had never happened to me and I just sat there in the dust of the runway and wept because I knew immediately that my season was over before it had begun.  I was a pole-vaulter without a pole, and a small college like Principia College would never have enough money in their budget to buy me another.

Dreams shattered, I showered and began to pack up what remained of the unfixable pole and went to the equipment room to get my travel tube for my car.  There in the room in the corner rack stood 10 or 12 U of I poles just like mine, except that now they weren’t like mine at all.  Mine was broken.

In my depression and devastation I had an idea.  A rich school like the U of I would never miss one of their poles.  Why not just slip one of theirs into my car tube, throw the remains into my back seat and get rid of them on the drive back to St. Louis?  Who would ever notice a missing pole among 10-12?  It was my only choice.

Let us pause here in the tale and look a bit into the flaws of character of the hero of our story.  He had grown up a good boy – taught the rules of moral character, taught the difference between good and evil and taught the discerning of right versus wrong.  But he had strayed while traveling the world on his own.  The previous year he had discovered how to steal – not how to rob banks, mind you, just petty thievery – the kind one would not go to jail for, but would certainly reap great embarrassment if ever caught.

Trouble was, he had never been caught.  His modus operandi had been clever enough to fool everyone (except, of course, himself) and he’d gotten away with his petty thefts so far.  In fact, he had found the act sometimes all too thrilling in its drama and pleasing in its result.  It had become fun to fool the people and pleasant to own something new and otherwise unaffordable.

There was attached to the experience the slight smell of addiction.  So this choice was the only choice.  It would be easy and no one would ever find out.

So I packed my new pole into my travel tube, strapped it to my car in the cover of night and took off for St. Louis.  A hundred miles or so down the road I pulled into a small country town, found a dumpster and put half of my shattered pole there and on the way out of town threw the other half into a farmers corn field.  Evidence destroyed.

It was when the thief got back into his car that he made his first mistake.  He forgot to turn the car radio back on and so he continued his drive back home in silence.

Now it was after midnight.  The fresh spring air and the quiet of the lonely highway began to take its toll.  The silence gave rise to conscience.  And the conscience was, at last, troubled.

I had known inwardly for some time that I was on the wrong course.  But the crimes had been so petty and the results pleasing.  Now, however, I had moved up into a whole new level of crime.

I drove on for another 50 miles, but now my mind was racked with guilt and the fear of being exposed, and the magnitude of what I had done caught up with me.  But looking back I know that really what happened was that the goodness that was always my basis, simply rose in my consciousness and took over.  As I drove on I came to a strong realization of where I was going with all of this and that it was to my doom.

In fact, my doom had arrived.  I understood that if I continued in this direction my downfall was right around the next corner.  It wasn’t that I feared getting caught so much as I simply feared the person I had become and made a conscious decision to turn from this and become my true self again.

And so, now 180 miles down the road and moving closer to 2:00 in the morning, I turned my car around (and turned my life around) and drove back.

I reached the U of I about 4:30 that morning.  All was asleep and quiet.  The gym and indoor track facility was locked up tight.  I could leave the pole at the front door of the track, but that was pretty weird.  Then I noticed an open window high up in the building.  Somehow I scaled the wall and got into a third story window, found the key I had left behind, opened doors and put what did not belong to me back where it belonged.  I locked up and got back into my car and at 5:30 AM, began the 250-mile drive home again.

Corny as it may sound, I did not turn my car radio back on.  Instead, I began to sing hymns as I drove.  I think I sang about every hymn I ever knew that night as I drove and the new day dawned on a new man.

That was a life-changing experience.  I stopped stealing for good that night though I have to admit to stealing a few hearts.  But that night I got it.  And as a result of my change of thought, my character changed.  I became a good person again and I cannot put words to the happiness I felt and the sense of awakening I felt on the entire drive.  The experience is here with me today as powerful as it was back then.  I was healed and the healing was complete.

Epilogue to tale: When I got back to school after spring break I marched right in to confess my sins and reversal of character to my new coach.  I explained that I would work in any way he wished to make the money to buy a new pole.  I expected the worst.

What I got from Coach Crafton was, “Well Pete, I didn’t buy one pole; I bought three.  I knew you might break one.  After all, they break.  No sweat.”

Good triumphs.  Evil bites the dust.  Life Lesson for a Pole-Vaulter.