High school pole vault stars enter Missouri state meet as conquerors of fear

The neon-orange label screams at Chris Nilsen and Nicole Kallenberger every time they pick up the equipment for their sport.

WARNING: Pole vaulting is a dangerous activity. Severe injury, paralysis and death have occurred.

Theirs is an event that stirs fears essential to human nature: of falling, of failing.

Of death.

“You’re flinging yourself upside down on a rod, hoping it doesn’t break or kill you,” Nilsen said. “I think you have to be a little bit crazy in this sport.”

Neither Nilsen nor Kallenberger has let this fear prevent them from being among the best in their sport.

Nilsen, a Park Hill High School senior, could be headed to the Olympics this summer. Among all men in the United States, he’s currently ranked 14th — and 24 will be invited to next month’s U.S. Track and Field Trials in Eugene, Ore. At last Saturday’s Missouri Class 5 Section 4 meet, Nilsen set an American record for high schoolers, planting his pole and sending his body flying over a bar placed 18 feet, 4  3/4 inches above the ground.

Kallenberger, meanwhile, a senior at Lee’s Summit West, has the highest vault in Missouri this year for a high school female (12 feet, 9 inches). Last season, she broke her sister Brittany’s state meet record (12-10).

Neither’s path has been marred by catastrophic injury. But the fears and frustrations of pole vaulting race through their minds every time they sprint down the runway.

Kallenberger started pole vaulting in eighth grade. And hated it.

For the first two weeks of practice, she’d cry in the car as her mother drove her to her workouts. Her hands were covered in bruises. She couldn’t figure out how to get herself off the ground.

Nilsen, who started pole vaulting during his freshman year as a way to stay in shape for soccer, says he doesn’t enjoy his vaults until the moment they’re almost over.

“At about the last four steps of my vault, I know it sounds really odd, but I black out,” he said. “I don’t see anything and I don’t really remember what happens. I completely go numb, and everything just zones out. My vision gets very tunnel-visioned and I just see the bar. Then when I clear the bar, that’s when everything comes back into perspective.”

Even through the tears and blackouts, the frustration and the physical demands of perhaps the most intimidating event in high school athletics, Nilsen and Kallenberger have conquered a sport that too often conquers its participants.

Although his national acclaim didn’t come until the last year or so, Nilsen realized quickly that pole vaulting was something at which he could excel. But to be great, he had to shut out the nagging fear of failing, and failing spectacularly.

So did those around him.

“There was a meet his sophomore year when he started to jump over 10, 11 feet,” Nilsen’s mother, Karen, said. “I had to leave the stands and go throw up in the parking lot. I was so nervous.”

Such worries are not unfounded.

According to a study conducted by the American Journal of Sports Medicine, 32 catastrophic pole-vaulting injuries were reported between 1982 and 1998: 31 head injuries and one spinal fracture. Sixteen of those injuries were fatal.

Safety standards for pole vaulting were enhanced in 2003. The biggest adjustment was a larger landing pad, which helped prevent vaulters from falling behind or off the side of the mat. According to a follow-up report by the same medical journal, 19 catastrophic injuries were reported between 2003 and 2011. Fatalities dropped to one.

Nilsen has seen the YouTube videos of pole vaults gone wrong. His challenge is to block them out while sprinting down a 125-foot runway, carrying that carbon-fiber pole that warns of terrible injury and possible death.

“There’s definitely a fear. People die from this sport,” Nilsen said. “Fear definitely drives you. It drives you to better yourself. I think that’s what kind of makes everything go blurry for me when I go — I’m too afraid to realize what’s happening.”

During a recent indoor session at Lee’s Summit West, Kallenberger started sprinting down the runway. Pole in hand and moving like a blur, she arrived at the vaulter’s box (where the pole is planted) at a breakneck pace only to pull up and run through the box instead. The attempt aborted, she let out a groan, upset with herself for hesitating.

Although she stayed with the sport despite her initial hatred of it (thanks in part to some convincing from sister Brittany, who now vaults at Central Missouri), Kallenberger still struggles with her confidence. She loved pole vaulting once she figured out the technique, but she also admits that some mental obstacles remain.

“The fear of not going up and running through — I definitely let that control me sometimes,” she said.

Hesitation is an everpresent challenge at every level of the sport. The run — not the actual vault, not the fall — is the most stress-inducing part of pole vaulting.

Vaulters, even professionals, often falter at the end of their run, deciding to bail at the last possible instant. But if they’ve already planted their pole, momentum can carry their body upward. They can get stuck at the height of their vault and tumble to an unforgiving surface below.

That happened to Kallenberger once this season: “I halfway decided to go and halfway didn’t,” she said. “I put my hands up and put the pole in the box and kind of jumped off the ground. I went up in the air and floated back on the runway. It didn’t hurt or anything; it was just so embarrassing.”

Kallenberger remembers that moment each time she tries again, fearing that same embarrassment and worrying the outcome could be worse next time.

That anticipation is normal in pole vaulting, according to Dr. Andrew Jacobs, a sports psychologist who has worked with the University of Kansas and the Royals.

“The time people are most anxious is right before they do something; when they actually do something, there’s more a sense of calm,” he said. “It’s that pre-anxiety. … (Pole vaulting) is one of the most physically and emotionally demanding events there is because of the anxiety involved.”

So why compete in such a stress-inducing event?

They do it for the fall.

Kallenberger loves the feeling of the wind rushing through her long ponytail. For Nilsen, the payoff comes in the mid-air realization that he still hasn’t hit the mat, and is plunging from an ever-higher distance.

Both will continue to pole vault in college this fall.

Kallenberger, who hasn’t cried on the way to practice since middle school, will compete at Ole Miss. Nilsen will go to South Dakota, which started recruiting him before any other school came calling and has a coaching staff that Nilsen feels at home with. Other schools haven’t yet courted him even after he broke the U.S. high school record last weekend, though that could change in coming weeks.

This week, both will compete for Missouri state championships: Nilsen on Friday and Kallenberger on Saturday.

Whatever happens at state, Nilsen and Kallenberger leave their respective high schools knowing they’ve mastered an event that many will never even attempt. Their courage, among other things, has made them two of the best in their sport.

“This event, from the day you first start pole vaulting to the day you stop, you’re going to miss a lot more than you make it,” said Jacobs, the sports psychologist. “It becomes something where you have to attack it.

“You can have several athletes, but the ones with the stronger minds are always going to come out on top.”

This story was originally published May 26, 2016 at 2:16 PM with the headline "High school pole vault stars enter Missouri state meet as conquerors of fear."