Byers makes pole vault progression
Four inches in three years?
It doesn’t sound like much – especially to Tyson Byers, whose improvements as a pole vaulter used to be measured in feet and weeks, and so his satisfaction will be postponed until it’s appropriate.
On the other hand, there were times in the past three years those increments seemed like Everest.
So there was relief, at the least, when Byers sailed over a crossbar set at 17 feet, 5 inches at an indoor meet 12 days ago in Nampa, Idaho – his personal best and a quantum leap in the track and field record books at Washington State University.
“I was excited – you can’t be mad about PRing,” he said, “but I have the potential to go so much higher. I’m just waiting to bust out a big vault.”
Actually, the wait may be over.
The performance arc of a pole vaulter isn’t supposed to be as fitful as it’s been for Byers, who enrolled at WSU in 2002 straight from University High School after a three-year run as the best prep vaulter in the state. The blue-chip football recruit might have to redshirt his first year merely to gain enough strength to stay in one piece, and the high school gunner may see his scoring average go from 20 points a game to two while he learns the intricacies of coach Shufflecut’s offense. The shot putter has to deal with a heavier cannonball, the slugger with nastier curves.
But, really, what’s stopping the 17-foot high school vaulter from going higher his first day on campus?
Well, you name it and it’s stopped Tyson Byers.
There was the foot injury, a leftover from high school that by the end of his first WSU outdoor season virtually precluded training. Last year, there was the hamstring he pulled in January that acted up all the way through May and caused him to take a redshirt season.
Mixed in was the inevitable technique tinkering – OK, overhauling – and all the trial and error that follows. Byers had topped 17 feet twice in high school, with a best of 17-1, but the point is to go higher – not to just keep going 17, and so adjustments must be made.
“When you get a new coach, he changes things,” Byers said, “and so you have to regress before you progress again. You have to take a step back and relearn the event.
“My vault now is a lot better than it was in high school. I carry my pole higher, my plant is stronger – really everything is improved. It just hadn’t shown up in the results.”
He was confident this would be the season it would – at least until he wound up eating through a straw for six weeks.
A broken jaw – not your normal vaulting injury.
“Someone punched me,” Byers said. “I was at a party and I got into an argument with a guy – something stupid. He was wearing tights, and I said something like, ‘Nice tights, buddy,’ and some drunk kid – I don’t even know if it was his friend or what – thought he had to join in. He came running in and threw a punch. My mouth was open and it snapped the jaw. It was wired for six weeks.”
Somehow, Byers managed to lose only five pounds and keep most of the fitness he’d built up through the fall. His indoor season started slowly – a 15-11 clearance in his postponed debut, then 16-63/4 at a meet in Nebraska, and finally his breakthrough at Nampa. He’ll try to keep the run going this weekend in Seattle at the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation meet, WSU’s indoor conference championships.
“I’m not surprised that he’s made this jump,” said Cougars coach Rick Sloan, himself a 17-foot vaulter back in the day, “and I don’t think anyone’s satisfied at this point. We think he’s an 18-foot vaulter, and it’s not out of the question that we could see that the next two or three weeks of the indoor season.”
It’s no stretch to say that Byers was the state’s most prominent prep vaulter dating back to Casey Carrigan’s reign at Orting back in the late 1960s – what with the unprecedented three straight 4A championships and a best second only to Carrigan’s 17-43/4. Byers rewrote all his school and Greater Spokane League records, of course – which makes it rather curious that he’s now a distant second on U-Hi’s alumni list.
Curious, and a motivation to Byers.
Brad Walker – three years ahead of Byers at U-Hi – has, in the past three years, climbed among the nation’s elite vaulters, narrowly missing a spot on last summer’s Olympic team. At the University of Washington, he made the big, unfettered gains that Byers expected – to 18-61/2 and an NCAA championship as a senior, and now to 19-11/2.
“Brad’s had such huge success that he’s really an inspiration to me,” Byers said. “Just because I vaulted with him in high school and seeing how high he’s been able to go, it’s allowed me to think that hopefully someday I can be jumping at those same heights.
“What sets those guys apart is their mental approach. Brad’s got that huge, powerful run and takeoff, but he’s so strong mentally. There just aren’t any barriers out there.”
A couple of immediate ones remain for Byers. His 17-5 jump not only vaulted him into Wazzu’s all-time top 10, it took him all the way to third – behind the Cougars’ only 18 footers, Christos Pallakis (18-61/2) and Patrik Johansson (18-1/2) . WSU hadn’t had a new entry to that top 10 list since Pallakis set the school record in 1995.
“You know, this PR – it sounds good because it’s a PR, but it’s really not that good,” Byers insisted. “I don’t see it as anything big. You always want something higher – and I thought I had 17-9 after I made 17-5. Once you start clearing bars, that’s not high.
“Now that I know I’m getting close to 18, even that doesn’t seem so high.”
It’s only seven more inches. Of course, three years have taught Byers just how far that is.